GOOGLE

What Google’s Indexing Looks like From Discovery to Ranking

Published

3 years ago

October 20, 2021

What Google’s Indexing Looks like From Discovery to Ranking

How a website renders is a part of the indexing queue and like the other parts has an impact on SEO and ranking. Google’s Martin Splitt explained in a webinar hosted by Duda how rendering impacts SEO and what the crawl process looks like from initial discover to ranking.

The webinar began with Bartosz Goralewicz relating his observations that rendering and layout started surfacing as a trend at Google around 2011.

His personal theory is that it played a role in quality updates.

Perhaps more so today than in the past, rendering and page layout play an important role because of the increased interest in Core Web Vitals.

It could be said that much of the search community is more aware of things like the technical aspects of layout and rendering than in the past.

Rendering influences how fast a web page loads and consequently impacts sales and in some cases rankings.

Does Rendering SEO Help Rankings?

Bartosz started out by asking Martin Splitt a provocative question:

“Can rendering SEO help me rank better?”

Martin paused a moment to think then answered:

“I usually don’t answer ranking questions. I’ll make an exception here.

Generally speaking, no.

But specifically speaking, if there is a problem where something breaks your render and the content doesn’t show up, then if the content doesn’t show up and Google doesn’t see the content properly, then, that might actually hurt you in the sense of, we don’t see the content.

So we might not index the page or we might index the page, but not ranking for the content that you care about.

So yes, in the end it can make a difference and it can have an impact. Yeah, of course.”

Where Rendering Fits From Crawling to Indexing

Bartosz followed up with a question about where rendering fits into the crawling and indexing process.

He asked:

“Where does rendering sit in the whole scenario? …My understanding of that was always that Google creates a queue then crawls, renders and obviously optional, indexes the page. Would that be an oversimplification?”

Martin answered:

“That is slightly oversimplifying, but it’s fundamentally true.”

Bandwidth Affects Website Crawling

This is something that maybe doesn’t get discussed enough and that’s the ability of the server to handle not just Google but all the other bots and site visitors hitting the website.

Google will adjust the crawling if it seems like the server can’t handle the crawl.

This is called, Crawl Capacity Limit. Read more: Why GoogleBot Doesn’t Crawl Enough Pages on Some Sites

Martin Splitt discussed the issue of bandwidth and how it affects crawling.

Martin continued:

“We get lots of your URLs and we get so many URLs that we can’t crawl them all at the same time for the obvious reasons.

We can’t crawl all the URLs all the time at the same time for reasons of bandwidth. So there’s only so much internet bandwidth that you can use.

If you have an online shop and you come online tomorrow with the new online shop website and you have a million product URLs, your server might crash if we crawl all these million URLs at the same time.

So we have to spread this out through time, so there’s a queue in between us discovering a URL and the URL actually being crawled.”

From Crawling to Rendering

Martin next explains the next steps on the road to indexing content.

Martin:

“What happens then is once we have crawled, we can already look into the HTML …we can see …into the HTTP status.

If it’s a 404 HTTP status, then pretty much the processing ends here. If there’s a robots meta tag that says not to index, then our work ends here as well.

But if we get a bunch of HTML content and we can go forward with processing that in the rest of the pipeline, we also then queue the page for JavaScript execution, which is what you would call it “rendering.”

The second queue is very opaque in the sense that you don’t really see how long it takes us to render.

So like in the intake, there’s the URL that we discover and the output of that is either an indexed document or a non indexed document.

That’s pretty much what can happen here.”

What Indexing Queue Looks Like

Martin next provided a simplified outline of what crawling and indexing looks like.

Martin:

“So there is an additional queue that you skipped over, and there are a few more complications where the simplified model might not necessarily apply, but you can assume that the flow normally is discovering, crawling, queuing, rendering, indexing, and then potentially ranking later.”

From Discovery to Ranking

Martin Splitt provided a useful overview of how Google goes from discovering a web page to ranking that page (potentially). Martin seems to know quite a bit about how Google works internally so it’s always enlightening when he shares some of what he knows.

Citation

Watch Martin Splitt discuss rendering and the indexing queue at the 19:35 minute mark:

Searchenginejournal.com

GOOGLE

Google Warns About Misuse of Its Indexing API

Published

6 hours ago

September 12, 2024

Max

Google Warns About Misuse of Its Indexing API

Google has updated its Indexing API documentation with a clear warning about spam detection and the possible consequences of misuse.

Warning Against API Misuse The new message in the guide says:

“All submissions through the Indexing API are checked for spam. Any misuse, like using multiple accounts or going over the usage limits, could lead to access being taken away.”

This warning is aimed at people trying to abuse the system by exceeding the API’s limits or breaking Google’s rules.

What Is the Indexing API? The Indexing API allows websites to tell Google when job posting or livestream video pages are added or removed. It helps websites with fast-changing content get their pages crawled and indexed quickly.

But it seems some users have been trying to abuse this by using multiple accounts to get more access.

Impact of the Update Google is now closely watching how people use the Indexing API. If someone breaks the rules, they might lose access to the tool, which could make it harder for them to keep their search results updated for time-sensitive content.

How To Stay Compliant To use the Indexing API properly, follow these rules:

Don’t go over the usage limits, and if you need more, ask Google instead of using multiple accounts.
Use the API only for job postings or livestream videos, and make sure your data is correct.
Follow all of Google’s API guidelines and spam policies.
Use sitemaps along with the API, not as a replacement.

Remember, the Indexing API isn’t a shortcut to faster indexing. Follow the rules to keep your access.

GOOGLE

This Week in Search News: Simple and Easy-to-Read Update

Published

2 months ago

June 30, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

This Week in Search News: Simple and Easy-to-Read Update

Here’s what happened in the world of Google and search engines this week:

1. Google’s June 2024 Spam Update

Google finished rolling out its June 2024 spam update over a period of seven days. This update aims to reduce spammy content in search results.

2. Changes to Google Search Interface

Google has removed the continuous scroll feature for search results. Instead, it’s back to the old system of pages.

3. New Features and Tests

Link Cards: Google is testing link cards at the top of AI-generated overviews.
Health Overviews: There are more AI-generated health overviews showing up in search results.
Local Panels: Google is testing AI overviews in local information panels.

4. Search Rankings and Quality

Improving Rankings: Google said it can improve its search ranking system but will only do so on a large scale.
Measuring Quality: Google’s Elizabeth Tucker shared how they measure search quality.

5. Advice for Content Creators

Brand Names in Reviews: Google advises not to avoid mentioning brand names in review content.
Fixing 404 Pages: Google explained when it’s important to fix 404 error pages.

6. New Search Features in Google Chrome

Google Chrome for mobile devices has added several new search features to enhance user experience.

7. New Tests and Features in Google Search

Credit Card Widget: Google is testing a new widget for credit card information in search results.
Sliding Search Results: When making a new search query, the results might slide to the right.

8. Bing’s New Feature

Bing is now using AI to write “People Also Ask” questions in search results.

9. Local Search Ranking Factors

Menu items and popular times might be factors that influence local search rankings on Google.

10. Google Ads Updates

Query Matching and Brand Controls: Google Ads updated its query matching and brand controls, and advertisers are happy with these changes.
Lead Credits: Google will automate lead credits for Local Service Ads. Google says this is a good change, but some advertisers are worried.
tROAS Insights Box: Google Ads is testing a new insights box for tROAS (Target Return on Ad Spend) in Performance Max and Standard Shopping campaigns.
WordPress Tag Code: There is a new conversion code for Google Ads on WordPress sites.

These updates highlight how Google and other search engines are continuously evolving to improve user experience and provide better advertising tools.

AI

Exploring the Evolution of Language Translation: A Comparative Analysis of AI Chatbots and Google Translate

Published

7 months ago

February 26, 2024

Max

A Comparative Analysis of AI Chatbots and Google Translate

According to an article on PCMag, while Google Translate makes translating sentences into over 100 languages easy, regular users acknowledge that there’s still room for improvement.

In theory, large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT are expected to bring about a new era in language translation. These models consume vast amounts of text-based training data and real-time feedback from users worldwide, enabling them to quickly learn to generate coherent, human-like sentences in a wide range of languages.

However, despite the anticipation that ChatGPT would revolutionize translation, previous experiences have shown that such expectations are often inaccurate, posing challenges for translation accuracy. To put these claims to the test, PCMag conducted a blind test, asking fluent speakers of eight non-English languages to evaluate the translation results from various AI services.

The test compared ChatGPT (both the free and paid versions) to Google Translate, as well as to other competing chatbots such as Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini. The evaluation involved comparing the translation quality for two test paragraphs across different languages, including Polish, French, Korean, Spanish, Arabic, Tagalog, and Amharic.

In the first test conducted in June 2023, participants consistently favored AI chatbots over Google Translate. ChatGPT, Google Bard (now Gemini), and Microsoft Bing outperformed Google Translate, with ChatGPT receiving the highest praise. ChatGPT demonstrated superior performance in converting colloquialisms, while Google Translate often provided literal translations that lacked cultural nuance.

For instance, ChatGPT accurately translated colloquial expressions like “blow off steam,” whereas Google Translate produced more literal translations that failed to resonate across cultures. Participants appreciated ChatGPT’s ability to maintain consistent levels of formality and its consideration of gender options in translations.

The success of AI chatbots like ChatGPT can be attributed to reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF), which allows these models to learn from human preferences and produce culturally appropriate translations, particularly for non-native speakers. However, it’s essential to note that while AI chatbots outperformed Google Translate, they still had limitations and occasional inaccuracies.

In a subsequent test, PCMag evaluated different versions of ChatGPT, including the free and paid versions, as well as language-specific AI agents from OpenAI’s GPTStore. The paid version of ChatGPT, known as ChatGPT Plus, consistently delivered the best translations across various languages. However, Google Translate also showed improvement, performing surprisingly well compared to previous tests.

Overall, while ChatGPT Plus emerged as the preferred choice for translation, Google Translate demonstrated notable improvement, challenging the notion that AI chatbots are always superior to traditional translation tools.

Source: https://www.pcmag.com/articles/google-translate-vs-chatgpt-which-is-the-best-language-translator