Search

PDFs in Search: Indexing, AI & Pitfalls

Should you publish your content as a PDF or stick strictly to standard HTML? Does Google treat PDF files differently when it comes to indexing, ranking, and AI search features? In this episode of…

Ranking & Algorithms Crawling & Indexing

Do sitemaps still matter?

Sitemaps have been a core element of web development and search engine optimization for two decades, yet Search Console warnings like "Couldn't fetch" continue to generate concern among site owners.…

Crawling & Indexing Measurement

Should you block your Search result pages? - transcript

Should you block your Search result pages?

Is your website's internal search feature secretly acting as an open invitation for crawling lots and lots? In this episode of Search off the Record, Martin Splitt and John Mueller pull back the…

Crawling & Indexing

How to read the Indexing Report

Should you panic when your Search Console indexing report is showing pages that aren't indexed? Is a 404 error code always a sign of a broken website? In this episode of Search Off the Record, Martin…

Crawling & Indexing Measurement

Should I use markdown for my site?

Should you convert your website into Markdown to help Large Language Models (LLMs) understand your content better? Is "llms.txt" worth the effort for SEO? In this episode of Search Off the Record,…

AI Search & Visibility

Vibe Coding - yay or nay?

In this episode of Search Off the Record, Martin Splitt and John Mueller from Google's Search Relations team dive deep into the world of AI-assisted development. They explore the reality of "Vibe…

How AI Is Changing Google Search and SEO - transcript

How AI Is Changing Google Search and SEO

In this episode of Search Off the Record, Martin speaks with Nikola Todorovic (director of Software Engineering at Google Search) about how AI is changing Google Search. They discuss the evolution…

Analysing Robots.txt at scale with HTTP Archive and BigQuery - transcript

Crawling & Indexing

Analysing Robots.txt at scale with HTTP Archive and BigQuery

In this episode of Search Off the Record, Martin and Gary turn a simple robots.txt question into a data‑driven deep dive using HTTP Archive, WebPageTest, custom JavaScript metrics, and BigQuery. They…

Crawling & Indexing

Are websites getting "fat"? Page weight, HTML size & Googlebot limits explained - transcript

Crawling & Indexing