Gary Illyes Interview - Happiness and Sunshine from Google | Discussion with Top Google Algorithm Expert about current Search trends! #502

Hi, and welcome to the SEO podcast, Unknown Secrets of Internet Marketing. My name is Chris Burris, one of the owners of EWR. And my name is Matt Bertram, one of your SEO specialists. Welcome back to another fun-filled edition of our podcast. We are so excited. Like we mentioned last time, we are in the presence of sunshine making glory. We're so excited to have Gary, and I've seen him on interviews. He kind of requests to not even attempt his last name, so I'm not going to. We've got Gary from Google. We're really excited to have this interview going. So, Gary, thank you so much for joining us. Buna Ziwa. Is that right? Buna Ziwa. Yeah, that's correct. I'm impressed, actually. It doesn't happen often, but you've managed to surprise me. Fantastic. That was my goal. Well, good job. What a great way to start. Great. So, we've got a list of questions. We're excited to be given some time with you, and let's just jump in. We wanted to start with, like, you recently, it looks like, have kind of a new position at Google. It may be relatively new. How do you like this new search relations team? When was that group team formed? And would you say it's fair to say that team is kind of a replacement for Matt Cutts? And are you just a glutton for punishment, you know? That's an interesting question. And something that's been brewing for, I mean, it's related to something that's been brewing for quite some time. We actually haven't changed teams. We just rebranded ourselves because originally, we were called, I think, Webmaster Trends Analysts or Web Trends Analysts. And that's a confusing title. Like, internally, when we were asked, like, what are you doing? It's like, well, we are Web Trends Analysts, so we communicate a lot with external people. And then sometimes we analyze the web. And then people were just, like, really confused about, like, what the heck are we doing? And search relations, that describes better what we are doing, essentially. And

then we just decided to go with that. Nothing really changed internally. Well, nothing at all, except now people can understand easier what are we up to, I guess. And as for the Matt Cutts connection, there also hasn't, there was no change there either. Basically, when Matt left, then we were brainstorming a lot whether we should have one person who replaces Matt or, well, or not. And we decided that there will not be one person. Basically, the person who's responsible for Web Spam position that Matt had initially, that was filled with, by one person. I will not name him because he wants to stay anonymous for reasons. But then the communication side, that was replaced by a whole team. And we, some folks are less visible. Basically, they don't like the communication side of it. But then there are a few of us, like John, Martin, Daniel, and myself, who don't mind. Okay, that's an overstatement that we don't mind. But are okay with communicating externally. But it also means that we cause Twitter wars and meltdowns and all the fun stuff. We also represent Google in court sometimes. So, yeah, it's basically what Matt used to do, except instead of one person being the lightning rod, now there are several. So, I've seen a couple of interviews with you guys, and you really seem to have a lot of fun. I think, you know, I'm wearing a shirt that says sarcasm on it because you're a very proud wielder of sarcasm. Seems like you guys have a lot of fun doing what you're doing. Like, what's it like working on that team? It's probably a nightmare. So, like, I mean, we've been doing internet stuff for a very long time. Like, if you combine us together, then probably we have over a century experience of internet stuff. So, we grew quite cynical of things. So, there's lots of cynicism going on when we interact with each other. That doesn't bleed through the public communication. Well, not often, at least. But then we still want to

have fun. So, if not cynicism, then what else can you have? And then there is sarcasm. And I believe that we are doing quite a good job being sarcastic. It's been pointed out quite often that people, like, well, people who never heard me do public speaking, for example, they would not understand what's happening and they wouldn't understand why am I saying things and then mean different things. Because, this is especially true in America, when I have public speaking opportunities in the States, then, well, sometimes I confuse people and then they just quote literally what I said, even though it was just sarcasm on my side. But, so, Gary, when you were talking about, like, you know, Fred, right, the update Fred, where did that fall? On sarcasm or cynicism? And if you could talk a little bit about kind of like the experience surrounding that kind of exchange. So, that was, that was cynicism at that point. That was Barry annoying the living heck out of me with, I don't know, we launched some update on search. And then he's been pestering me about why don't we give it the name, the specific update. And I was like, no, we are not naming these things. It's like, no, we should name them. It's like, no, we are not naming it. And then he was pestering me for a while. And then at one point, I just snapped. And I was like, you know what, from going forward, every single freaking update will be just Fred. And that's it. Just Fred. Okay. Yeah, I mean, y'all are constantly doing updates. So, it's hard to, I guess, keep up with, you know, the naming of all of them. Right. Right. Right. Like, choosing specific names for every specific update would be kind of a nightmare. Yeah. So, it's, I think that what Danny did, Danny Sullivan, our public search liaison, to name these updates just core updates, and then people stick a name or a month next to them, next to it, next to the name. That

kind of works. I don't think that it was necessary. But if people are happy with it, then whatever. Yeah, I think they just want to kind of point to something of, like, you know, what's changing in the Google Dance and kind of what's going on. People are going on what's going on with the weather, that sort of thing. So, I think that that's helpful. You know, wanted to kind of transition away from some of that stuff and kind of talk about more kind of broader views of stuff. Maybe you can speak a little more openly. But, like, you know, one of the big hot things, right? And, you know, SEO used to be a hot term. Now, it became kind of a negative term. And then, you know, it kind of constantly changes. But machine learning and AI is really kind of stepping to the spotlight. You know, we're seeing that a lot in, you know, the AdWords side of things and kind of the learning algorithms and neural networks kind of building better at a lot of these searches. I would be really interested to hear kind of your future of kind of where things are going, you know, and kind of what that kind of guiding star is. I know we can get into Eid and some other things later, but really wanted to hear kind of your broader view of kind of where search is going, where, you know, technology is going as far as search goes. Right. So, honestly, I don't think that machine learning changes. No, us using machine learning in search changes all that much externally. Basically, the same rules apply. It's just we are combining signals in ways that we haven't thought of before, for example. And I do think it's making search better in a way that we haven't seen before or we couldn't think of before. So, I do think that from our perspective, this whole machine learning voodoo, it's actually a good thing. I know that SEOs and those, well, web professionals in general, they

focus a lot on the machine learning aspect of it. I honestly think that they shouldn't because we don't change the rules or the guidances just because we started using machine learning. We figure out new connections between different things thanks to machine learning, but otherwise, everything just stays the same. So, the experience that you want to provide to the Google user is still the same. This might be a good place to check. We always say on our podcast, you can go back, you know, we started in 2009, we always say that if you're providing a good experience to the Google user, Google will look favorably upon you. What's your take of that kind of statement? I mean, it has to be the same, right? But, yeah, I completely agree with that and I was a big advocate of that even before I joined Google like 10 or 11 or whatever years ago because ultimately, that's what users want, a good user experience. Right, and that can mean a lot of things, but like ultimately, like we're always thinking, okay, how do you provide that good experience to the Google user and then like keep doing that and do that more and multiply it. Right, right. Also, one thing that's funny about this phrase, user experience, is that most people I talk to, they refer to user experience when it comes to the layout, for example, of the page and how fast it loads. But the experience of the user doesn't stop there. For example, if I'm reading Wikipedia, let's say that I'm bored and I start reading something about, I don't know, Emily Bronte, and there's this 3,000 word article and I keep scrolling and I get a good experience because it's in sections. I can jump up and down based on what I'm reading, I can jump up and down based on what I'm reading, reread some parts, and then follow links to other Wikipedia articles or even external links. That was a user experience. The thing that I read and how that was written

and how I perceived what was written on the page, that's also user experience. Because I literally, I'm literally experiencing the content. So it's the whole thing, really? Yeah, it's not just the layout and how fast the page loads and where you placed ads or whatever. It's also the content itself. And when people think about user experience in relation to Google users, then I would rather they think about the whole package instead of just taking things apart and just like, okay, but user experience is just like how I place the ads here and there. And like, no, it's the whole package. I like that. Yeah. So we're in the middle, obviously, of a pandemic. We've got COVID. What? I didn't get that memo. I mean, if you Googled it, you could find out about it. So are you guys seeing any trends that are changing from a search perspective related to COVID? And if you are, are you guys saying, hey, this is something that we need to incorporate long term? I mean, in the beginning of this whole COVID crap, we had to rethink some of the features that we have. Like, for example, I don't know what the public name is for it. The PSAs, the public service announcements or like, for example, when you search for anything COVID nowadays, you get very specific experience on the search result page. And that we had to build out very fast from a product that was not meant to be used at that scale. Like, when, for example, there's an earthquake in California or Indonesia or whatever, then you normal, like if you search for the earthquake from that location, then you would get like a small box, which says that the magnitude was this. The epicentrum was here and whatever, but for COVID, we had to develop a complete experience where people could get relevant information from authoritative sources. And yeah, that was new. That was triggered by, well, it was both our forward thinking leaders, search leads, but also the trends that we saw

in logs that more and more people search for COVID related crap, COVID symptoms, COVID, the treatment, COVID vaccine, COVID, I don't know, South Carolina or whatever. Um, and, uh, based on that, um, our, uh, path was influenced basically. So Gary, if you apply that to kind of like a consumer behavior, I know like, and I know you were on the, um, you know, the, the, the, the local team, or I don't know what the right name was for, but like the Google, my business team, as far as, you know, there was a lot of changes, um, on how people are, are searching, how people are buying. Things, um, you know, and, and, and it looks like that, that's going to be, um, prolonged, uh, with what's going on. Well, maybe no, maybe not. There's some announcement today that Pfizer has some, you know, cure or whatever, but, um, or vaccination, but, you know, like, are you seeing like permanent, uh, changes in, in search behavior? And, and I, I mean, I, I guess, I guess in every update, you kind of take that into consideration as things evolve. Um, can, can you speak to kind of anything that, that you're seeing or, um, anything that on a broad level, um, that you might be doing or, uh, SEOs or local small businesses, uh, maybe would be good advice to take into consideration. Of kind of what's happening and, and them needing to change kind of their online presence in, in, in a, in a way. Uh, that's a great question. Uh, I can only speak for search, uh, web search itself. Um, well, also video and, uh, and images, but not for Google, my business. Um, so I don't actually know what they are doing. Um, I, I, I, I see the features that, um, pop up and I'm amazed that, that appeared just like you would be. Um, I'm, I, I'm not getting communications about that. Um, but in search itself, um, we, we did have to make some changes. The thing that I

talked about, uh, um, PSA system, um, or feature experience. I don't know what would I call it, um, that, that's, that was brand new, uh, basically almost, it was built up what was from scratch. Um, and as for businesses, um, on the internet, I would invest in, um, in, in a shopping cart somehow. Um, um, I was, I was amazed, uh, how quickly, uh, certain companies, um, or actually platforms, um, created, for example, shopping carts for, for those who were hosting with them, um, and enabled them to, uh, continue to remain online, even though they had to close their, uh, physical stores. Um, but I know for certain that many businesses are not on these platforms, basically they can't get a wholesale, um, solution, uh, from, from the platforms that they are using, um, because for example, they are on WordPress or they are using, uh, Joomla or they are using, uh, blogger. They are basically platforms that are basically platforms that are not, uh, specifically created, uh, for, for such things like selling things. Um, and, and they are not, um, um, well, they are not platforms like Etsy, for example, or, uh, WordPress.com, um, where you can, um, piggyback on whatever was developed for other, um, um, users. Or, or, well, yeah, users. Um, so I would definitely, like, regardless of what platform are you on, um, I would try to find a way to, um, sell your thing online. It doesn't have to be a physical thing, obviously, like you can sell, um, I don't know, web stamps or, um, get guest book entries or whatever. Um, but find a way to, to sell online because now we know that people are willing to buy online. Um, they are willing to, to give out, um, their credit card information, um, to random, uh, stores. Um, but you have to provide that experience. You have to let them give you, uh, your money. Um, and if you don't have a shop, an online shop, then how will you do that? So I would

do some research. Um, I don't know, WordPress shopping cart or something like that on your favorite search engine. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, and just, um, and just make it happen. Um, because you do have users and they are willing to buy from you. Uh, most likely, um, you just have to provide them, um, the ability to, to actually purchase from you. It's, I think you're right. The, the, the speed at which a lot of restaurants made it available to order online when in the past they didn't was like an appropriate response to the situation, but still impressive nonetheless. Um, all right. So, I mean, Chris, like even like service-based businesses, right? Like, I mean, I think they need to start thinking about, uh, changing how they do business when things are typically like a in-person interaction. Right. Having, and, and, uh, Gary, I, like, I know you kind of mentioned before and we have it kind of down the list of questions, but image and video, like we're, we're really seeing the incorporation of different kinds of content. Um, really reflective positively in the search engine to enhance that experience. But like, I'm thinking like, you know, service-based businesses that are, you know, um, SMBs, like they, they need to provide, or this is what I've been saying. I want to get your kind of input on to see kind of how that matches up. But I, I think they need to provide, um, you know, a virtual showroom, right? And, and kind of walk them through, um, what would happen if someone came into their showroom to buy that experience so they can, they can see maybe what they're going to get or hear some testimonials, see kind of the different products. If they're selling say windows or doors or something like that, um, and try to find a way to incorporate, um, virtually as much as possible because people want to limit interaction and then having that shopping cart at the end. But, you know, some of the data points that I remember, Chris,

I can't remember where it was, but 85% of people are through the purchasing decision before they pick up the phone and call you. I would think COVID, you know, it's even further than that. Right. And like, you want to be able to maybe provide that whole experience, no matter what your business is online. Yeah. Um, and I would also add that sometimes you will have to think about how to, uh, transform the experience because very often you cannot map the same experience, the same in-store experience to online. Um, we see this with conferences, for example, and I, I, I, I don't mean to offend anyone. But I yet to see an, uh, an online conference that can give me the, the same satisfaction, the same experience that an offline conference can do or can give me. Um, because what, because what people are doing, um, is trying to map the offline experience to online. And it just doesn't work because like, why would it work? Like you don't have, um, that person in front of you to read their small gestures, the, the small mimics on their faces, for example. Um, so you can't actually adjust your, your, um, um, your presentation narrative, I guess, presentation. Um, like for example, I, I don't see that, uh, Chris is yawning there because I just don't see him. Um, if I saw him that he's yawning again, um, yeah, stop doing that. Yeah. You would probably get sarcastic. Yeah, exactly. Um, and I w I would try to wake them up. Uh, I would modify my presentation, uh, on the stage, uh, just to, to engage with the, with the audience, but I don't see them. Um, so you get sucky presentation from Gary. Yeah. Well, suckier than usual, but anyway, um, but yeah, um, try to think about like, how could you map, well, whether you can map the offline experience to, uh, in-store experience, uh, to online. And if you can't, cannot, then just brainstorm with your, uh, partner about like how, how to, um,

offer something similar or even more immersive. Um, yeah. No, that's, that's, that's really, really quite interesting. You can't map everything. Right. And, and, you know, really like when you're talking to people or even like, you know, that goes back to like text messaging or something like that. It can be misinterpreted because you're not reading, uh, uh, the, the, the full body language of what's going on. Like that brings up something in my head. I'm just kind of going off on a tangent here. You know, I know that, you know, uh, a lot of things are being recorded through video now. Um, I mean, is there any plans of Google to start mapping, uh, like eye movement or, um, kind of like what, whatever these, you know, um, wearables are doing for how the experience is, uh, in search of like how people respond because that, that's something that's extremely lacking. I know that, you know, if you go back to why kind of Gmail and, uh, Chrome was, was going on as people were spending very few, few, few moments on the search when kind of Facebook was launching and, and they wanted to understand what the user is doing, not just kind of in the search standpoint, at least from what I've kind of read, that was kind of one of the initial emphasis of, of, of, of why it was being launched. Like now with COVID, everybody's more online. You can grab more data. I'm wondering, um, is there other kind of dimensions of what Google might be looking at when we're talking about the customer experience? I know that's way off on tangent and I don't know if you've ever thought anything. Go. Yeah. Um, really long question, very short answer. Basically, I don't know. Um, Um, I, I, I know for certain that, uh, we are always on the lookout for, for new signals that we can use. Um, but, uh, I know that, uh, we do user studies in person user, well, in person as in we used to do

in person user studies, uh, uh, where we were doing eye tracking, but that was in a, in a lab, uh, environment. Um, um, otherwise I, I don't know, I don't even know how you would do eye tracking. Um, also it freaks me out that anyone, it totally freaks me out. So I, it makes us a little nervous. Yeah. I wanted to kind of go back to AI and, and so it's, you said it's good. And you may not be able to share this, but you said it's coming up. It's kind of pointing out signals that, um, are very useful that you hadn't kind of come up without AI. Can you share any of those? Is there anything that's standing and you're like, wow, I wouldn't have expected that to have such an impact. Is there anything that you can share? Cause that, that's like really geeky and cool. I mean, I know of several of them, um, but I don't think I should share them. Um, so, so, so here's one thing. Um, uh, people tend to overthink search, um, and, uh, think of search. Like we are using all these obscure signals and whatever, but very often those signals are not that obscure and they are like right in your face. Um, and the problem with those signals is that very often it's very hard to, um, build protections against abuse. Yeah. Um, when it, when it comes to those signals, um, so it's, it's kind of like security through obscurity. Yeah. Um, basically if we don't say them, maybe people will not figure it out and then we don't have to, um, uh, build a massive protection or more robust protections against, um, spam when it comes to those signals. Um, but yeah, basically any, anything that's on, on a, on an HTML page is, is a fair game, um, for, for us to use as a signal and then you can combine them. Um, um, of course, and then whether, or, or, or how you combine them, um, that might, uh, give

you, um, new perspectives about, uh, where something should rank, for example. Okay. Okay. So, so one of the things I think you could, uh, talk about, um, maybe, and it's a good time to transition into that is, you know, eat, right? Like, so that, that, that, from what I understand is like a simplification of kind of all the different, uh, algos that, um, you know, you're kind of looking at of kind of that guiding stars we were talking about before. Or maybe you can, uh, speak a little bit more openly on just kind of, uh, eats in general and, and what, what people should be doing for, for guidance maybe. Um, good question. Um, I would point out that eat itself, basically I would start off with this. Eat itself is not a ranking signal. Yeah. Um, so let's take that off the table for, for the, uh, audience. Um, what it, what it is, is, um, an explanation for humans, basically our raters about what our algorithms, uh, are looking for, um, when it comes to X quality or whatever. And with that, um, the best place to learn about eat, um, is actually the, um, raters guidelines. Um, that we published, uh, and keep, um, updated, um, if you search for it on your favorite search engine, I'm sure you will find it. I, I don't have the URL handy. Um, it's, uh, over 150 page long document. It's perfect when you want to fall, fall asleep because, um, it's utterly boring. Um, I, I know that I, I tried to read it several times. I couldn't, um, it's, it's just, it's amazing how boring it is. Um, it's only in English and that's on purpose. Um, basically the, the, the raters actually have to speak English. Um, so, or read and understand English. So that's why we publish only in English. Um, I don't know if that's new information, but anyway. Um, so if you want to learn more about eat, then raters guidelines, that's, that's your, um, your go-to document. Um,

if you want to read interpretations of, of, of eat, then there are several people on the, uh, interwebs, um, who are kind of, uh, on the right track. Um, or are on the right track, um, one, these people would be, for example, um, Marie Haynes, um, Glenn Gabe, um, Jennifer Slag. Um, they are all pretty diverse when it comes to, uh, eat and generally their interpretation, um, is, is, um, is quite sane. Um, the problem with eat is that, uh, many people try to interpret it and, uh, most of the stuff is batshit stupid. Um, uh, and. Is that how you really feel? I just, I just wanted to check there. Um, I mean, I could try to sugarcoat it if you want. Oh, I thought that was sugarcoat. No, that was me. Um. No, that, that, that, that's fantastic. Um, you know, shifting gears a little bit, uh, you know, like something that I think gets undervalued a lot is, uh, image and video search. Uh, but based on like the search volume, I see like huge, huge opportunities. And I was curious if you could kind of talk about that on a broad level, but maybe apply it, uh, to small businesses. Um, how, how they might be able to leverage it or, or maybe some, you know, examples of people that are doing it right that small businesses could look to. Because I, I just think it's a huge opportunity that, that, uh, in the marketplace, because how many times can you write a blog about, you know, um, you know, roofing services in a particular city that, that's not going to be, um, adding to the, the, the knowledge base or relevancy to, to what's already been written. Um, but on the image or video side, um, there's a lot of kind of how to explainer and things that you could do to, um, enhance the user. Yeah. Um, fantastic question. Um, I love both video and image, um, image search, um, mostly because you can, uh, discover stuff in a

different way. Um, I mean, we've been using web search for over 20 years and it's been working for us, um, as humans, uh, quite well. Um, but then, um, sometimes you need a different, um, kind of, um, way to discover things. Um, like I'm moving apartments, um, right now, basically, um, I actually have to have something that is livable if I'm, uh, staying put in, in Switzerland, because normally I would travel because that's my job. Um, but now we have this fricking COVID crap and I cannot travel anyway. So now I'm moving apartments and, um, I needed ideas about how to, um, furnish the place. Um, like my old apartment is a, is a small studio, so I didn't really have anything in there. Um, but, um, now the apartment is bigger. Um, it's a little bigger, but anyway, um, but I do need new stuff. In the, in the apartment. And, uh, I started as most people would, I imagine I started with web search, um, but, um, it was just not doing it for me. Um, and then as soon as I switched to the images tab, um, suddenly the idea started flowing. Um, I'm a visual type myself, um, so I can imagine things much easier. Um, if I see, uh, stuff like for example, if I see, um, uh, uh, Cecil, uh, what's that in English? Um, wow. Reading chair. Um, okay. I could, I could remember in German and not in English. Wow. That sucks. Um, if, if I see a reading chair, for example, uh, on image search, then I can kind of envision that in the room and how it would look like in the room. Um, um, but if I'm just doing the four blue links plus the ads plus the whatever, um, it's, it's, it's rather hard. Um, and I think that's where, um, small businesses can, can, um, jump in quite aggressively into, um, uh, into search results. Um, because I'm fairly certain there are many people like me, uh, who are more, uh, visual

and then, um, they would prefer to see images of things that people are selling. Um, I was actually following, um, uh, a small business, a local small business, uh, their transition to COVID, uh, era. Um, and, um, they are a bakery. Um, they do have, uh, one, um, online presence, um, but, um, it was kind of plain, um, there was nothing special about it. And honestly, I wouldn't have gone there, um, by myself, I guess, uh, like, unless I see an ad or something and yeah, it, it, it just looked weird. Um, and then overnight they redesigned the whole experience when, um, our first lockdown happened. Um, and they put up lots of images, um, of everything. And soon after that, those images started to show up in me search as well. Um, and then when I was searching for example, uh, uh, uh, was, uh, keep fairly, uh, croissant, for example, um, then I, I would get on the, on the, uh, uh, second position, uh, whatever that means in image search, um, uh, dear, uh, croissant. Um, I recognize it because they have a logo on it. So I, I, it was also like a, a branding thing for them, I guess. Um, but I clicked through and I bought a bunch of, uh, croissant for the next two days from them because I've, I saw them on image search. Interesting. Honestly, if I, if I would have seen them in web search, I probably wouldn't have clicked through. So, so Gary, I mean, on the image search and video search kind of, um, again, in broad, broad terms, uh, like localization, right. I mean, I, I'm assuming Google's taking that into consideration with your story of, uh, because I think a lot of people have shied away from it because, you know, you say you push a video out on YouTube or you put up an image, like if you're, if you can't sell, um, like geographically across the U S or North America or across the world, and you're, you're a

local business, you know, you don't know who's going to see those images, but it sounds like to me, based on just your story, um, Google's taking localization into consideration. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We do. Um, I mean, I was working on the team for, uh, I don't remember up to two years. I don't actually remember for how long, uh, where we have this, um, uh, signal, uh, called, um, uh, LTCP language, language demotion country promotion, um, where we take into account the users, the searchers location. And then based on that, um, we boost, uh, results that are, uh, geographically relevant to them. Um, and the demote, um, results that are, uh, in a language that they might not be interested in. Um, so if you are, um, for example, targeting, um, I don't know, um, the French, uh, speaking Canadians, then you can definitely do that just by creating French pages for them. Um, that's, that's really not new. And it's been working like that for, for the longest time. Um, yeah, but, but yeah, we, we do take into account, uh, geographic location, both for both of the result and the, uh, the user. So I want to ask a question. So can you talk a little bit about Google's decision to include link signals surrounding no followed links and how does this impact maybe other countries outside the U S more? Interesting. Um, so that was one of my, uh, uh, most exciting announcements, um, in, um, well, last year, um, we don't actually have anything to announce there, but I, I can certainly talk about like how I envision using that, uh, to our advantage. It's worth pointing out that, uh, most search engines, uh, are treating no follow as a hint. Um, and they've been doing that for the longest time. Um, like for example, um, if I remember correctly being never agreed to use it as a directive, the no follow, um, signal or whatever annotation. Um, they always said that they would just use it as a hint. And

basically that's what we picked up to, um, we, for reasons, I, I, I don't know why, um, um, we back then in 2006, maybe, um, we decided that, uh, we are just going to use it as a directive, but it also blinded us, um, in, um, many aspects. So for example, if you put up a note or if you put up, um, no follow link leading to malware, for example, then we wouldn't have been able to see that because you put out no follow, because you put a no follow on the, on the link. Um, same goes for spam, uh, same goes for pretty much anything. Um, and for us treating, um, and for other search engines as well, treating no follow as a hint, um, basically allows us to discover, um, these things that might be, uh, harmful for, for the users. Um, I don't think that we've ever said that we would, uh, want to, um, use no follow links in ranking specifically, um, uh, definitely not, um, in the announcement blog post, uh, but that's also a possibility. Um, we know for, like our algorithm is, um, uh, like ranking algorithms, um, still, uh, use links quite, uh, extensively, uh, for ranking purposes, um, which means that if there are no links, then it's harder for us to, um, it's not impossible, but, but certainly harder to rank, um, certain results. Um, and there are areas of the, of the internet, um, language areas, um, where there are just not enough links and that blind, that basically makes our results be less optimal. Um, like for example, if I'm in, um, Indonesia, um, I used to go to Indonesia a lot because diving, um, and, um, I do speak some Indonesian, um, so I was searching in Indonesian, um, and I was amazed how bad the results were. Um, and even for common terms, um, like where to buy bread or where, where to buy, uh, double double or what this weird, um, um, um, not sauce, but salad sort of thing.

Um, and the results were quite awful in, uh, quite, yeah, quite awful many times. Um, and when I got back from vacation and I started debugging these queries, um, then it was evident that the reason for that is that it is not that we have a data void essentially where there are just no results for, or no good results, um, for those, uh, um, queries. It was that we were not, we weren't able to rank those, uh, results because for example, we didn't have enough links and we didn't understand, we didn't have context. We didn't have, um, link choose. I'm air coding here, um, um, um, that we could use for ranking. Um, and that's not to say that you now absolutely have to go out and buy links like a crazy person. Um, because we, especially in, in the English speaking, um, or on the, in the English speaking internet, we have countless examples for, um, um, sites ranking without links at all, like without incoming external links. Um, because here the internet is more mature. Um, we understand the web much better, uh, because, well, we've been operating on the English internet for longer, for much longer. Um, so you can absolutely rank without links. Um, but in certain areas it's, it's just much harder. Well, and that's probably related to like, if there aren't that many sites that have the content that fulfills the query, then, you know, great. You can rank without, without the links. But if you are in a competitive environment, the links start to become, uh, significantly important. Like that just makes sense. I mean, um, even in competitive, uh, or for competitive queries, um, it's, it's certainly possible. Uh, one of my favorite examples, um, comes from a conference where, um, this person, external person, um, was saying exactly the same thing, uh, that you don't necessarily need links to, to rank well. And the thing, uh, that, um, uh, he brought up was, uh, car brand, uh, purchase or something like that. Some, some, some, some,

uh, commercial query for a car brand. Um, and, um, the first result, uh, was from the brand, uh, itself. Um, it was, it's a, it's a smaller brand. So it's, I guess it's fairer, more fair. Um, and, uh, then he was doing, uh, link analysis, live link analysis on that specific result. Um, and it was just, it just had no links, no external links whatsoever. Was it a big, uh, did it have a lot of internal links? No, it's just, no, it was a small site. Um, the brand was clear. Um, but then if you are online and you want to stay online, then you probably eventually will have to build out your brand. Um, anyway, um, and, um, it just worked for them. And then he showed, I don't remember three, four or five more examples where the, it was, uh, he was showing head queries where, uh, these, uh, uh, tools like, uh, Ooh, I wanted to sound smart and now I don't know these tools. Um, um, I don't know, screaming frog, that's a link analysis tool. Yeah. Okay. Uh, wow. High five. Oh, it's internal. Oh, wow. That's great. Anyway. So, uh, these link analysis tools, uh, couldn't find any, uh, external links pointing to the, to those, uh, pages that showed up in the, one, the, in the poll position. So it's definitely possible to do it. Um, you just have to. Have good experience. If you, if we want to loop back to the, uh, beginning of the podcast. Yeah. The on page, let me ask you this. Like you kind of brought up something, um, you're talking about maybe more fair, like based on kind of difficulty of search terms, you know, we deal with a lot of, uh, small businesses that we, we will work with and it seems to be completely difficult, uh, to compete with the bigger brands. And I've read some things, um, about how y'all try to kind of make it more fair. Can, can, can you speak to maybe any of those

things or any kind of guidance, uh, to small business owners of how they can still continue to compete with these bigger brands, uh, with not the budget and internal team and, and, and, and things like that to, to, to still keep a level, a level playing field in, uh, in search. Right. So, uh, I will go back to my bakery example here, uh, because, um, it's a small bakery. It's, it's, it's one of the more obscure bakeries. Um, and we have several chains here that would happily ship me, uh, croissants, um, at a better price, um, and this bakery managed to, this small bakery managed to beat those chains. Um, one thing that they did really well is to recognize that there are visual types and they optimize their images. So they have more surfaces where they can come up in search results. That's one thing. The other thing is that they do something special. Um, they are specializing in croissants. They are not trying to sell me all the kinds of breads and pretzels and, uh, croissants and bear claws and, uh, Danish, whatever they are just specializing in croissants, but their croissants are epic. They are absolutely epic. I don't know how they make them. Like I can make croissants. I bake a lot. Um, I can make croissants, but I have no idea how they make it, but it's just, they are just epic. Um, so there are, there were two things that happened. Um, one was that people talked about their croissants in relation to the brand name that they have. Um, they were sharing, um, the, the brand on social media. Um, they were writing about them on Facebook and Twitter and whatever. They didn't link, but that's not necessary, uh, many, in many cases. Um, and then, uh, they provided a painless experience, uh, for the users to actually get the croissants. Um, they were the, the first ones, I believe, um, the first bakery to offer, um, close to instant delivery within the city, city of Zurich, um,

meaning that they were, uh, hiring people to deliver by bikes, uh, or using bikes, uh, the croissants. Basically they took out the oven, the croissants and delivered it to your doorstep within 10, 15 minutes. Wow. Um, and that basically, that was what made them amazing and why people talked about them. Um, so you have to think like when, when, when you are online, um, there are many sites like yours, most likely. It doesn't matter what you do. It's very likely that there's already a site like yours. Um, what you have to do is sit down with whoever you are working with, with your partner, with your friends, with your, uh, relatives, probably not with your dog and, um, uh, start talking to them, uh, start brainstorming about how could you stand out because let's be honest, like it's, it's hard to be special on the internet. Um, and it's very likely that you are not going to become special alone. Um, uh, you will need help. Um, but the help that you need is, um, more people who can give you ideas. So talk to people, how would you, uh, make this, uh, this business more special? Um, it might be that you send, uh, um, uh, I don't know, a red rose with, uh, uh, bottle of wine that people are buying from you. It might be that, um, you deliver, you do instant deliveries. Um, it might be that, uh, I don't know, you just include a personalized handwritten note with every purchase, um, but you have to come up with something special that will make people remember you because if they remember you, then your, then their friends will remember you as well by extension, because they will talk about you. Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. So really you're talking about the overall brand experience, something that we talk about at EWR on a regular basis. And, and really this kind of goes back to, I mean, we're, we're, we're talking with a search expert and his recommendation was deliver a red rose

with your wine. Like that's, that goes back to the business and the brand that you're trying to project to your customers. That's pretty, pretty phenomenal. Um, we're, we're about out of time. I don't know if you have a time limit right now or cause we've got a couple more questions or we can end it here. Go for it. Excellent. Matt, did you have something that you wanted to jump in or? Yeah, no, I, I definitely have a few more questions. Um, I want to just make sure to leave enough time for if there's anything Gary wants to kind of communicate. Um, you know, I want to make sure. Oh, I'm good. Yeah. I don't have anything on my mind right now. Other than. So, so, you know, I guess schema schema kind of here changed recently. And I don't know if you can kind of speak to kind of, you know, what, why y'all change kind of, you know, what you're looking for or like we, we've started to kind of restructure kind of the, the, the schema that we've been doing on a few sites, um, based on some of the stuff we've seen. And I did, I don't know if you can speak anything to kind of, uh, schema in general or kind of what, what you're looking at there. Uh, are you talking about the tool change? Yeah. Um, okay. Um, so I, I think there's, um, there's a slight misunderstanding there, um, in general, because we haven't actually changed anything about schema. Um, what, uh, we changed is, um, what and how the tool interprets, um, because historically that tool, um, was validating, um, any kind of schema that you threw at it. Um, and for, from our perspective, that was not necessarily optimal because then people were like, okay, here's this obscure schema. Why are you not using it in search? And then we were like, well, because we don't want to say, yeah, but then the tool is validating it. So what up with that? And it's like, just,

it was just these really weird conversations. Um, so what we did was, um, switching the tool to only validate schema, um, that we are using in search for, uh, visual features. Okay. Um, I pointed out visual features because there are two ways we use, uh, schema in general in, in, uh, in search result or in search, um, one is for visual things. Like for example, recipe carousel or, um, software, software carousel, uh, and I forgot what else. Um, but we are also using it in general for understanding the entities on the page and that's not visual that happens in the background. It will potentially make search results better. Um, but it's not like people will have a direct benefit from, from, from them, from those schema. Um, those schema are actually much simpler to validate and basically any validation tool could do it, um, that is following the schema.org. Um, uh, uh, I, I don't know what they are recipes or whatever. Um, yeah. Um, so technically from our side, we don't like, if you are following a schema.org, um, um, well schema, um, then, um, uh, you are already on, on, in the good. Um, you can use some other tool to validate those. Um, and if you are targeting a specific search feature, uh, visual search feature, then for that you have the, um, rich, whatever testing tool. Okay. Yeah. Um, I, I also have a question. Chris and I, uh, have had some, uh, interesting conversations on the podcast about AMP, uh, and, uh, kind of the future of AMP and then, uh, how can you have interesting conversations? Go ahead, Matt. Uh, and, and then, you know, um, something that we're starting to see and, and we, we haven't implemented it yet, but, you know, like AMP carousels, kind of the little preview pages, um, you know, I, you know, load time I know is, is just one of the signals, but, but it, it's a pretty dang important one, I believe to user experience. Cause if you're on mobile and

the page doesn't load, you know, you're going to click out pretty quick. Um, but can you speak to the future of AMP and any of your thoughts on kind of the AMP carousels that are starting to kind of pop up? Wow. Uh, the short answer is no. Um, the longer answer is that, um, as a user, uh, very often I prefer AMP. Um, and, uh, very often I'm actively looking for the little AMP icon, um, or badge or whatever it is. Um, and even before we announced it and we already talked about it internally, um, I was actually super excited about it because I, I felt that it can provide an experience which can be better than whatever you can provide on, on your site, um, using traditional coding. Um, very often people overload their site with, uh, many, many, many, many, uh, kinds of frameworks, for example, JavaScript frameworks, um, out of which they will use only one or two functions or instructions, which is like, the heck are you doing? But anyway, um, um, um, so AMP could definitely help with that. Um, and also the caching that's phenomenal for, um, for, for users, um, for, uh, webmasters or SEOs or web professionals in general, it can generate some overhead because you're, well, you have to all implement it. But then if you are on a platform like, um, or CMS like WordPress, for example, then you basically install a plugin and you already have it. Um, so it's, it's not that bad. Um, I definitely think that, um, in many cases it can still provide a much better user experience than whatever people can do on their website, but it's not necessarily true all the time. Um, you can definitely nowadays create an experience that is very close to AMP, um, basically create a snappy experience just by doing some pre-fetching, for example, uh, or optimizing what you are loading, uh, into the webpage and basically not overloading with crappy frameworks, your poor site. Um, so it's, we, we are, we are

getting there, um, already even without that. Um, and I think that, um, that was one important role of AMP basically making web professionals realize that people are actually looking for snappier things, um, where things is pages, web pages. Um, and, uh, they started optimizing those pages. Um, there were many people who were, uh, just switching to AMP, um, or implementing AMP on top of, um, the HTML that they already had and that already helped people. But then there were people who were, um, or web professionals who were not quite AMP friendly, for example. And then what they were doing is to, is optimizing their pages to load faster because, well, they needed to keep up with AMP or whatever AMP could offer for users, for their users. Um, so I kind of feel that it, it's in some sense, it started a revolution, um, and it moved, um, the needle, uh, of the loading times, um, to a more green, um, section of the little dial. Um, and we are in a better place, uh, nowadays, uh, one of my, uh, uh, path sites that I will not name, but it's CNN, um, uh, it used to load in over a minute, basically it, it was just loading something. I was not even looking at one point, like what it was loading, but their developers invested a lot, uh, into speeding up the site. Um, and I believe that that was partially because of AMP because every other new site, um, was creating this snappy experience where you could just click on a result and under very often under a result, uh, uh, under a minute, under a second, uh, you would get a result, basically a page, um, where you could consume, um, or experience the content. But if you were loading for, uh, over a minute or you could have first paint, um, in, uh, only 15 seconds, then it's very likely that, um, you are, um, that, that, that click goes to somewhere else, right? Um, I mean, if you are into,

um, CNN life sites, then maybe you would go to Washington Post. Um, if you are, uh, WSJ, then you would go to, um, I don't know, Fox News or whatever. I don't actually know. I'm making stuff up here. Um, um, so yeah, I, I feel that it kind of started a revolution and, um, the bad, the web got in, or it's, it's in a much better shape than it was a few years ago, uh, speed wise. Um, and, um, I think that the team, uh, wants to eventually build on that momentum and, um, perhaps evolve AMP. Maybe, I don't know. Um, I'm not on the AMP team, so I don't actually know, um, what, uh, their plans are, but um, um, on their websites, they usually, uh, publish their, uh, uh, their plans. Uh, they are not as secretive as search. Chris, I have two, two more quick questions. Um, I wanted to follow up on that. So just overall, when you're Gary, when you're actually using the web, what, what's your biggest pet peeve, right? So we, you, you hinted there a little bit about time and load times, but what's like overall your, your nightmare experience when you're experiencing the web? Freaking pop-ups. Yeah. Um, so actually there are, there are quite a few, I think. Um, so pop-ups, that's one thing. Um, I loathe pop-ups and I just don't see like, why would people do that? Because at this point, um, I, I don't think, I, I would be surprised if, uh, uh, you could convert really well with, with pop-ups. Um, because I mean, everything has a lifetime and I would think that people got used to pop-ups enough that they just closed them at this point. Uh, so I know, I know for certain that their conversion rate was amazing, but I, I'm not sure that, um, that's still the case mainly because people went blind, uh, well, pop-up blind as in, um, the second thing is that everyone thinks that, um, they need 3000 plus words on a page

to rank. And this is, uh, very obvious on, on, uh, recipe sites where basically you start from Adam and Eve, um, and you go through how Moses, uh, got the tablets and then you end up at, um, I don't know, Julius Caesar. Yeah. Uh, and then eventually you will end up at the bottom of the page in three lines, basically how to make croissants. Uh, and I think that's bad shit stupid. Um, and I know why people do it, but it is crazy. You don't need to do that. Um, especially for, for your own recipes. Like for example, if you come up, like, of course, if you are copying recipes, then you probably need to compete somehow with the other site you copied the recipe from. Um, so you might need those, uh, um, basically first chapter of Wuthering Heights. Um, but otherwise it's like, it's, it's just bad shit crazy. Like no one wants that. Um, so yeah, um, those are the two things that I'm, I'm absolutely nuts about. Um, I, unfortunately I, I got a little used to slow loading websites. Um, so that's not bothering me too much anymore, unfortunately. Uh, but there was long winded articles about nothing and then three lines on the bottom about something that does bother me and pop-ups those. That's, that's, that's just, that's just no. Make them go away. Chris, great question. Um, so yeah, two more quick questions if, if we have time for it. Um, I have five more minutes. Okay. Um, one more question. Um, yeah. So, so say a company is, um, changing their name, changing their site structure. Changing their domain, changing really everything about their brand, but maybe that brand's been around say 20 years. Um, you know, like I know in search console, you can kind of switch it over and it'll carry over some of the, the link history maybe. Um, but you know, what kind of recommendations, uh, would you give to companies that are maybe rebranding to keep up with the times or they're,

uh, maybe they've purchased, uh, you know, a brand or incorporating it into, uh, their initial brand of how, how to carry some of that stuff through. Is there any kind of place to look for best practices or, you know, any kind of recommendations you would give there? Because really everything that I've read, like there's kind of a threshold that if you change enough stuff, Google's going to consider it a brand new site, no matter kind of what, what you do. And I just wanted to hear kind of from the, that's, that's, that's, that's only partially true because if you are using the site move tool in search console, um, then, um, that will just move all the signals over to the new site, unless you are doing something spammy, in which case we will, uh, choose to ignore that. Um, so I, I would definitely use that, uh, the tool in, in webmaster tools because that ha in search console, because, uh, um, that's the thing that will, will, will make the signals transfer. Um, I think one thing that many people, uh, forget when they are rebranding, for example, is how actually people work or how their brain works. Um, and I was tweeting about that and, uh, I caused a little meltdown on, on Twitter, um, because, um, um, the, the, the story behind the tweet was that, um, I got an email about, um, um, basically someone was phishing email addresses and, uh, somehow they found mine. Um, and it was a rant about how after, um, a week we are still showing the old name for the site, uh, even though they rebranded. Um, um, you know, results, um, and I, I, I just lost it a little because it's like, like I will never do that. Like here there's a company called, um, um, or used to be a company called cable com, um, basically the cable company. Um, and then at one point they were, um, uh, purchased by, uh, UPC. Um, but people, um, my friends, they are

still calling that same company cable com because that's what we called them for 10 years. Yeah. We, we are not calling them UPC, even though that would be the correct term. We are calling them cable com. Why? Well, because cable com never actually invest, well, well, UPC never actually invested into teaching people the new reality that it's not cable com anymore. It's UPC. Um, they are still branding some of the bills that they are sending as, um, cable com, um, member of UPC or whatever. Uh, I don't actually know how to translate it, but they are still showing cable com on their bills. Um, sometimes it shows up in ads that, uh, and, and they're, and then they are amazed that people are still calling the company cable com and not UPC. It's like, duh, like you're even telling people that it's still cable com. Like, why would people call you UPC when you are not doing a good job calling yourself UPC? Um, so I would invest traditional marketing or in traditional marketing in just teaching people that you've changed. Um, and that's a very psychological thing. It's probably not going to happen overnight. It definitely won't happen in one week, but eventually you can teach people to call yours, um, to call you something else. Um, I mean, our brain can still be taught. It's quite a, uh, um, quite easy to teach the brain new things, especially simple things like this. Um, and it can work, but it takes time and it needs investment. Like you cannot expect people to call you something else unless you tell them repeatedly that they should call you something else. That makes, that makes sense. Yeah. Well, we're kind of at, I think at your time limit. So we want to thank you very much for taking the time and spending it with us. Do you want to share with our audience, like how they could connect with you or resources or things? Is there anything you'd like to share? Well, that's your email address. So

actually my email address is public because we were, we published something on, uh, IETF as a draft standard. And, um, so people could find my email address. I'm just not answering most of the, uh, emails that I get because, uh, well, I don't have time. Um, what do I want to share? Let's see. Well, don't eat yellow snow. That's one thing. Um, um, second thing is that, um, if you have questions or comments, uh, about our work, please find John Mueller on Twitter and, uh, complain to him. Um, I'm also on Twitter, but please don't, uh, yell at me because, uh, I'm a snowflake and I would just go in my corner and start crying. And I don't like crying. So don't do that. Um, but don't be surprised if I'm mean to you because, well, I'm just mean in general. As the purveyor of sunshine. I am. I like that. We'll wrap up the podcast with, I mean, again, Gary, thank you so much for, for joining us on the podcast. Thank you. Have a wonderful rest of the year. Hopefully this COVID crap will go away in some form or another. Right. Fingers crossed. Um, thank you much so much for joining us. Thank you for having me. Multumesc. Did I say it right? No. Finally. Thank you so much. It's a multumesc. Multumesc. Yeah. Thank you. Bye. Bye.