SEO e-Newsletter Issue 27 – 2021.02.16~2021.02.28

Starting from March this year, content that only appears on the desktop version will not be indexed

in previousNewsletterhas said that Mobile First Indexing will be launched in March. By then, all websites will have their mobile version as the main version, and content that only appears on the desktop version will not be indexed.

It is recommended that you find time to check in the near future to ensure that the content on the desktop and mobile versions are consistent. Can be used for small websitesthis toolCheck important pages. Large websites can rely on Screaming Frog to compare User-Agent crawling results for desktop and mobile phones.

The key points of inspection basically include: title, description, # of links, # of images (alt tag), indexability, structured data...etc.

link:Best Practices for Mobile Content-First Indexing System 

[Trick] Bulk Check Core Web Vitals with Screaming Frog

This article teaches you how to use Screaming Frog to run page speed detection (PageSpeed Insights) on a large number of URLs at once. You can see which types of web pages on the website are slower, which is quite practical.

Readers who don’t have Screaming Frog don’t despair, here it isAnother tutorialuses Google Sheets with Google Apps Script to achieve the same function. Although it is a bit more troublesome, it has templates and code, and it is a free method.

link:Screaming Frog full article

Complete Guide to SEO Learning (Chinese/English)

I believe everyone has this experience. They are not sure what the scope of SEO includes, how to learn step by step, and whether those skills should be advanced, or how high they should be. Recently I saw two quite good SEO study guides, one isby Aleyda Solislearningseo.com(English), the other one isMr. Harris'sSEO Complete Study Guide(medium)。

The resources and recommended articles on both websites are free. I plan to find time to read them myself and recommend them to everyone!

YouTube will launch “Applause” function

This is another way for YouTubers to make money besides advertising. It is similar to the tipping function. Users can use donations directly below the video to support their favorite videos.

is currently only available in limited countries (excluding Taiwan) and is not yet open to all channels. In addition, according to reports, YouTube takes 30% of this profit.

link:Mashable Report / Applause official description

GSC launches Association function

Google Search Console has launched a new Association feature that allows you to associate a "website" with "other Google services". These services and the benefits of association are:

• Google Analytics: Saw GSC information on GA. Starting today, you can link "domain" resources to your GA account
• Google Ads: See paid and organic reports on Google Ads
• YouTube channel: Only by associating the website with the video can the information card of the website link be placed.
• Play Console app: Using App Indexing
• Actions Console (Google Assistant): Authenticate brands and enable cross-platform functionality
• Chrome App Store: Publish Chrome plug-ins on behalf of the website

Twitter/X Post

View original post on Twitter/X

I'm not very familiar with other platforms. If there are any benefits worth mentioning after "association", please feel free to leave a comment!

link:Official announcement / official documents

[Promotion] Google Data Studio Chinese Course

Google Data Studio is a very powerful free tool for visualizing data. Recently, several experts I know have jointly opened a course on Hahow, introducing this tool step by step, and paired with multiple practical exercises, so that everyone can make the following rich data dashboard after finishing the class.

The picture above was provided by Max, one of the speakersGoogle Data Studio Template, quite beautiful, you can click on the upper right corner to make a copy. If you are not familiar with this tool, it is recommended to explore the template above to see its functions. I am personally very positive about the practicality of Data Studio and the professionalism of the instructors!

link:Course registration

[Official article] How to provide more accurate product information

In this article, Google said that they rely on identifiers to identify products. Commonly used identifiers include Global Trade Item Number (GTIN) and Manufacturer Part Numbers (MPNs). In addition, when using identification codes, it is best to meet three characteristics:

• Uniqueness:Products must have a unique identification code. Regardless of physical or e-commerce, an identification code must correspond to a product and vice versa.
• Verifiability:The identification code must be able to verify the manufacturer and other product information.
• Global Reach:The product identification system is global and can maintain seamless integration when products circulate in different regions.

In addition, this announcement also provides some suggestions for the use of identification codes for (1.) brands and manufacturers, (2.) retailers and third-party sellers, (3.) publishers (ex: when reviewing products), basically using GTIN and structured data correctly to let Google know that "the product you are referring to is the product that Google knows."

link:Official announcement

Google Search Podcast EP. 14 Summary

The episode is titled "Site Kit, Web Components, shards and more!", discussed several things, which are very technical and have little to do with SEO, but I personally find them quite interesting, so I will translate them a little bit.

Site Kit
An open source tool that facilitates webmasters to integrate their websites with other Google platforms (GA, AdSense, GSC...). It is developed and maintained by Google. Currently, there areWordPress plug-in, and other platforms are under development.

Web Components
Web Components allow developers to customize new HTML Tags (for example, when inserting YouTube videos, you can use<lite-youtube>This is a more performance optimized plugin), but most importantlyGooglebot can crawl the content in the customized web component, if you have heard of shadow DOM, this refers to the same thing. (Further reading)

Shards
Gary continues what was discussed previouslyIndexing Tierstalks about "serving index", which is the index database that is actually used to run after the user enters a search word. There are several such data centers around the world, and each data center has the same index database (if synchronization is completed), so if all conditions are the same, the search results will theoretically be the same. The

database is composed ofshards (shards), but even the smallest shard is very large. To find the most matching file from all shards in a few seconds, and then return the result to the user, Google also uses "shard indexes", "the posting list" and other methods, but the purpose is nothing more than to query the database more efficiently.

I would like to state that database design and performance optimization are not my field at all. The above explanation is my understanding. There may be inaccuracies. It is recommended to listen to the podcast by yourself. Discussion and advice are also very welcome!

link:verbatim draft

Google Search Central Live online event

Google organized this Search Central Live event to give everyone the opportunity to interact with Martin, Gary, John and others online. At the same time, it was also in response to the fact that there was no physical event like Google Dance during the epidemic. What is particularly touching is that in order to allow people in more time zones to participate (8 a.m. in Taiwan), many Googlers conduct this event in the early morning.

This event is divided into three stages:

• Fireside Chat[0:00]: A chat between four people, Martin, Cherry, Danny, and Ashley. The audience can also ask questions, but it mainly talks about some observations of the SEO community, Google’s future changes, and what mentality SEOs should face. Personally, I don’t think there is any special news.
• Technical SEO Case Study[34:03]: This segment is hosted by Martin and Kristina, who watch togetherAn exampleweb page, and then click on the SEO question above. Friends who are relatively unfamiliar with technical SEO can give it a try. It is very interesting to see other people's actual operations.
• Search Off The Record[53:13]: The three most familiar giants (John, Martin, Gary) recorded a first-level Search Off the Record, mainly to answer your questions. There are several interesting points in it:

How often does Google change its algorithm due to SEO mess? [1:06:40]
Gary's answer is probably that he has been working at Google for more than 10 years and can only remember 4 to 5 times. Google focuses on the quality of the overall search results, not that they chase the SEO community and try to fix things. John also added that most of the techniques used by SEOs to manipulate us can already be systematically caught.

How long will Google recommend Dynamic Rendering? [1:10:02]
Martin: Since Afterevergreen googlebot was launched in May 2019, we no longer recommend that you use dynamic rendering. This is not to say that this method is invalid, but that dynamic rendering usually requires too many technical changes, and server-side rendering (+hydration) is a better investment.

Because I work at home and have bad posture for too long, I have suffered from a herniated disc in the past few weeks and the pain is excruciating. Those who have experienced it should know the feeling of collapse that can easily irritate the nerves... So here, like an old man, I remind everyone that you must pay attention to stretching when sitting and following~