Introducing Our New International Webmaster Blogs!

Introducing Our New International Webmaster Blogs!

hindi russian thai turkish vietnamese webmaster community

Join us in welcoming the latest additions to the Webmasters community:

नमस्ते Webmasters in Hindi!

Добро Пожаловать Webmasters in Russian!

Hoşgeldiniz Webmasters in Turkish!

สวัสดีค่ะ Webmasters in Thai!

xin chào Webmasters in Vietnamese!

We will be sharing webmaster-related updates in our current and new blogs to make sure you have a place to follow the latest launches, updates and changes in Search in your languages! We will share links to relevant Help resources, educational content and events as they become available.

Just a reminder, here are some of the resources that we have available in multiple languages:

• Google.com/webmasters - documentation, support channels, tools (including a link to Search Console) and learning materials.
• Help Center - tips and tutorials on using Search Console, answers to frequently asked questions and step-by-step guides.
• Help forum - ask your questions and get advice from the Webmaster community
• YouTube Channel - recordings of Hangouts on Air in different languages are on our
• G+ community - another place we announce and share our Hangouts On Air

Testing tools:

• PageSpeed insights - actionable insights on how to increase your site's performance
• Mobile-Friendly test - identify areas where you can improve your site's performance on Mobile devices
• Structure Data testing tool - preview and test your Structured Data markup

Some other valuable resources (English-only):

• Developer documentation on Search - a great resource where you can find feature guides, code labs, videos and links to more useful tools for webmasters.

If you have webmaster-specific questions, check our event calendar for the next hangout session or live event! Alternatively, you can post your questions to one of the local help forum, where our talented Product Experts from the TC program will try to answer your questions. Our Experts are product enthusiasts who have earned the distinction of "Top Contributor," or "Rising Star," by sharing their knowledge on the Google Help Forums.

If you have suggestions, please let us know in the comments below. We look forward to working with you in your language!

Author. Erwin Widianto

Webmaster Forums Top AMP Questions

Webmaster Forums Top AMP Questions

AMP feedback and communication search results webmaster community

It has been busy here at Google Webmaster Central over the last few weeks, covering a lot of details about Accelerated Mobile Pages that we hope you have found useful. The topics have included:

• What is AMP?
• How to get started with Accelerated Mobile Pages
• How can Google Search Console help you AMPlify your site
• How to best evaluate issues with your Accelerated Mobile Pages
• Top 8 things to consider when you AMPlify a site
• How to set up Analytics on your AMP page
• How to set up Ads on your AMP page

We’ve also been seeing a few AMP questions coming to the Webmaster forums about getting started using AMP on Google Search. To help, we’ve compiled some of the most common questions we’ve seen:

Q: I’m considering creating AMP pages for my website. What is the benefit? What types of sites and pages is AMP for?

Users love content that loads fast and without any fuss - using the AMP format may make it more compelling for people to consume and engage with your content on mobile devices. Research has shown that 40% of users abandon a site that takes more than three seconds to load. The Washington Post observed an 88% decrease in article loading time and a 23% increase in returning users from mobile search from adopting AMP.

The AMP format is great for all types of static web content such as news, recipes, movie listings, product pages, reviews, videos, blogs and more.

Q: We are getting errors logged in Search Console for AMP pages; however, we already fixed these issues. Why are we still seeing errors?

The short answer is that changes to your AMP pages take about a week to be updated in Search Console. For a more in-depth answer on why, Google’s Webmaster Trends Analyst John Mueller shared a detailed post on Search Console latency challenges.

Q: Our AMP pages are not showing up on Google Search. What should we do?

Only valid AMP pages will be eligible to show on Google Search. Check the validity of your  AMP pages by using the AMP HTML Web Validator, the Chrome or Opera Extension or through a more automated process such as a cron job to make sure all new content is valid.

While it’s good practise overall to include schema.org structured data in your AMP pages (we recommend JSON-LD), it's especially important for news publishers. News content that includes valid markup properties are eligible to be shown within the Top Stories section in Google Search results. To test your structured data, try using the structured data testing tool.

If you have more questions that are not answered here, share your feedback in the comments below or on our Google Webmasters Google+ page. Or as usual, feel free to post in our Webmasters Help Forum.

Posted by Tomo Taylor, AMP Community Manager

Author. Erwin Widianto

An update on the Webmaster Central Blog

An update on the Webmaster Central Blog

feedback and communication webmaster community

We’ve got a new URL!

You may have noticed the Google Webmaster Central blog has a new address: webmasters.googleblog.com.

That’s because starting today, Google is moving its blogs to a new domain to help people recognize when they’re reading an official blog from Google. These changes will roll out to all of Google’s blogs over time.

The previous address will redirect to the new domain, so your bookmarks and links will continue to work. Unfortunately, as with a custom domain change in Blogger, the Google+ comments on the blogs have been reset.

Thanks as always for reading—we’ll see you here again soon at webmasters.googleblog.com!

Posted by John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst, Zürich

Author. Erwin Widianto

TC Summit 2015: Celebrating our Webmaster Top Contributors!

TC Summit 2015: Celebrating our Webmaster Top Contributors!

feedback and communication webmaster community

Two weeks ago, we were extremely lucky to host the 2015 edition of the Top Contributor Summit (#TCsummit), in San Francisco and on Google’s campus in Mountain View, California.

Google Top Contributors are an exceptional group of passionate Google product enthusiasts who share their expertise across our international help forums to support millions of Google users every year. Google’s Top Contributor Summit is an event organised every two years, to celebrate these amazing users. This year we had the pleasure to welcome 526 Top Contributors, from all around the world.

Under the motto “Learn, Connect, Celebrate”, Top Contributors had the chance to learn more about our products, get insights on the future of Google, connect with Googlers and Top Contributors from various products and, finally, to celebrate their positive impact on our products and users.

Footage of the 2015 Top Contributor Summit

We also had the chance to hold Webmaster-specific sessions, which gave Googlers the unique opportunity to meet 56 of our Webmaster Top Contributors, representing 20 countries and speaking 14 different languages.

Group photo of the Webmaster Top Contributor community and the Google Webmaster Relations team

Throughout the day, we had in-depth sessions about Google Webmaster guidelines, Search Console and Google Search. We discussed the most common issues that users are bringing up in our international webmaster forums, and listened to the Top Contributors’ feedback regarding our Search tools. We also talked about the Top Contributor program itself and additional opportunities for our users to benefit from both Google and the TCs’ support. Product managers, engineers and search quality Googlers attended the sessions to listen and bring the feedback given by Top Contributors and users on the forum back to their teams.

Webmaster Top Contributors during the in-depth sessions about Google Webmaster guidelines, Search Console and Google Search

At Google, we are grateful to have the incredible opportunity to meet and connect with some of the most insightful members of the webmaster community and get their feedback on such important topics. It helps us be sure that Google keeps focusing on what really matters to webmasters, content creators, and users.

To learn more about our Top Contributor Program, or to give us your own feedback, visit our Top Contributor homepage or join our Webmaster help forum.

Diogo Botelho and Roberta Remigi, Webmaster Relations team

Author. Erwin Widianto

FAQs about the April 21st mobile-friendly update

FAQs about the April 21st mobile-friendly update

mobile mobile-friendly webmaster community

We’d like to share answers to your frequently asked questions. For background, in February, we announced that the mobile-friendly update will boost the rankings of mobile-friendly pages -- pages that are legible and usable on mobile devices -- in mobile search results worldwide. (Conversely, pages designed for only large screens may see a significant decrease in rankings in mobile search results.) To get us all on the same page, here are the most frequently asked questions:

General FAQs

1. Will desktop and/or tablet ranking also be affected by this change?

No, this update has no effect on searches from tablets or desktops. It affects searches from mobile devices across all languages and locations.

2. Is it a page-level or site-level mobile ranking boost? 

It’s a page-level change. For instance, if ten of your site’s pages are mobile-friendly, but the rest of your pages aren’t, only the ten mobile-friendly pages can be positively impacted.


3. How do I know if Google thinks a page on my site is mobile-friendly?

Individual pages can be tested for “mobile-friendliness” using the Mobile-Friendly Test.

Test individual URLs in real-time with the Mobile-Friendly Test.

To review site-level information on mobile-friendliness, check out the Mobile Usability report in Webmaster Tools. This feature’s data is based on the last time we crawled and indexed your site’s pages.

Mobile Usability in Webmaster Tools provides a snapshot of your entire site’s mobile-friendliness.

4. Unfortunately, my mobile-friendly pages won’t be ready until after April 21st. How long before they can be considered mobile-friendly in ranking?

We determine whether a page is mobile-friendly every time it’s crawled and indexed -- you don’t have to wait for another update. Once a page is mobile-friendly, you can wait for Googlebot for smartphones to naturally (re-)crawl and index the page or you can expedite processing by using Fetch as Google with Submit to Index in Webmaster Tools. For a large volume of URLs, consider submitting a sitemap. In the sitemap, if your mobile content uses pre-existing URLs (such as with Responsive Web Design or dynamic serving), also include the lastmod tag.

5. Since the mobile ranking change rolls out on April 21st, if I see no drop in traffic on April 22nd, does that mean that my site’s rankings aren't impacted?

You won't be able to definitively determine whether your site’s rankings are impacted by the mobile-friendly update by April 22nd. While we begin rolling out the mobile-friendly update on April 21st, it’ll be a week or so before it makes its way to all pages in the index. 

6. I have a great mobile site, but the Mobile-Friendly Test tells me that my pages aren't mobile-friendly. Why?

If a page is designed to work well on mobile devices, but it’s not passing the Mobile-Friendly Test, the most common reason is that Googlebot for smartphones is blocked from crawling resources, like CSS and JavaScript, that are critical for determining whether the page is legible and usable on a mobile device (i.e., whether it’s mobile-friendly). To remedy:

1. Check if the Mobile-Friendly Test shows blocked resources (often accompanied with a partially rendered image).
2. Allow Googlebot to crawl the necessary files.
3. Double-check that your page passes the Mobile-Friendly Test.
4. Use Fetch as Google with Submit to Index and submit your updated robots.txt to Google to expedite the re-processing of the updated page (or just wait for Google to naturally re-crawl and index).

The most common reason why a mobile page fails the Mobile-Friendly Test is that Googlebot for smartphones is blocked from crawling resources, like CSS and JavaScript, that are crucial for understanding the page’s mobile-friendliness. 

To reiterate, we recommend that site owners allow Googlebot to crawl all resources for a page (including CSS, JavaScript, and images), so that we can properly render, index, and in this case, assess whether the page is mobile-friendly.

7. What if I link to a site that’s not mobile-friendly?

Your page can still be “mobile-friendly” even if it links to a page that’s not mobile-friendly, such as a page designed for larger screens, like desktops. It’s not the best experience for mobile visitors to go from a mobile-friendly page to a desktop-only page, but hopefully as more sites become mobile-friendly, this will become less of a problem.

8. Does Google give a stronger mobile-friendly ranking to pages using Responsive Web Design (which uses the same URL and the same HTML for the desktop and mobile versions) vs. hosting a separate mobile site (like www for desktop and m.example.com for mobile)?

No, mobile-friendliness is assessed the same, whether you use responsive web design (RWD), separate mobile URLs, or dynamic serving for your configuration. If your site uses separate mobile URLs or dynamic serving, we recommend reviewing the Mobile SEO guide to make sure Google is properly crawling and indexing your mobile pages.

9. Will my site / page disappear on mobile search results if it's not mobile-friendly?

While the mobile-friendly change is important, we still use a variety of signals to rank search results. The intent of the search query is still a very strong signal -- so even if a page with high quality content is not mobile-friendly, it could still rank high if it has great content for the query.

Specialized FAQs

10. What if my audience is desktop only? Then there’s no reason to have a mobile site, right?

Not exactly. Statistics show that more people are going “mobile only” -- either because they never had a desktop or because they won’t replace their existing desktop. Additionally, a non-mobile-friendly site may not see many mobile visitors precisely for that reason. 

The mobile-friendly update will apply to mobile searches conducted across all sites, regardless of the site’s target audiences’ language, region, or proportion of mobile to desktop traffic.

11. I have pages showing mobile usability errors because they embed a YouTube video. What can I do?

We suggest paying close attention to how the YouTube video is embedded. If you are using the “old-style” <object> embeds in the mobile page, convert to <iframe> embeds for broader compatibility. YouTube now uses the HTML5 player on the web by default, so it’s mobile-friendly to embed videos using the <iframe> tags from the “share” feature on the watch page or from the YouTube iFrame API. If you have a more complex integration, that should also be mobile-friendly, since it’ll instruct the device to use the device’s native support. 

For Flash content from sites other than YouTube, check if there is an equivalent HTML5 embed tag or code snippet to avoid using proprietary plugins.

12. Is there a clear standard for sizing tap targets?

Yes, we suggest a minimum of 7mm width/height for primary tap targets and a minimum margin of 5mm between secondary tap targets. The average width of an adult's finger pad is 10mm, and these dimensions can provide a usable interface while making good use of screen real estate.

13. To become mobile-friendly quickly, we’re thinking of creating a very stripped down version of our site (separate mobile pages) until our new responsive site is complete. Do you foresee any problems with this?

First, keep in mind that we support three mobile configurations and that your website doesn't have to be responsive to be mobile-friendly. In response to your question, please be cautious about creating a “stripped down” version of your site. While the page may be formatted for mobile, if it doesn’t allow your visitors to easily complete their common tasks or have an overall smooth workflow, it may become frustrating to your visitors and perhaps not worth the effort. Should a temporary mobile site be created, once the RWD is live, be sure to move the site properly. For example, update all links so they no longer reference the separate mobile URLs and 301 redirect mobile URLs to their corresponding RWD version.

Recommendations

If you’re totally new to building a mobile-friendly site, it’s not too late! Check out our Getting Started guide in the Mobile-Friendly Websites documentation.

Get started on your mobile site at https://developers.google.com/webmasters/mobile-sites/.

If you already have a mobile site, investigate the Mobile Usability report in Webmaster Tools to make sure that Google detects your site’s pages as mobile-friendly. 

Still more questions? Please ask below or check out the Mobile Websites section of the Webmaster Forum. 

Written by Maile Ohye, Developer Programs Tech Lead.

Author. Erwin Widianto