2024 updates

December 2024

December 18

Consolidating the robots.txt error handling documentation

What: Consolidatedrobots.txt error handling documentation into a single spot.

Why: We previously had information about robots.txt error handling in several places (specifically,HTTP status codes andSearch Console documentation), which lead to some confusion. This is a docs-only change, no change in behavior.

December 17

Documentation for managing crawling of faceted navigation URLs

What: Added new documentation aboutcrawling faceted navigation URLs.

Why: While the information was alreadypublic in form of a blog post, it was never officially made into documentation.

December 9

Documentation for cache control support of Google's crawlers

What: Added a section about how Google's crawlers handle cache control headers in theoverview of Google's crawlers.

Why: While the information was already public in form of a blog post, it was never officially made into documentation.

November 2024

November 29

Removing sitelinks search box documentation

What: Removed the sitelinks search box documentation andarchived thenositelinkssearchbox rule.

Why: The sitelinks search box feature isno longer available in Google Search results.

November 20

Added information about opting out of the Page Annotations feature.

What: Added information aboutopting out of the Page Annotations feature that's available on the iOS Google App.

Why: The new Page Annotations feature was launched recently.

November 19

Updated oursite reputation abuse policy

What: Updated language to make it clear that using third-party content on a site in an attempt to exploit the site's ranking signals is a violation of this policy — regardless of whether there is first-party involvement or oversight of the content.

Why: See ourblog post for more details on what changed and why.

Updated our Guide toGoogle Search ranking systems

What: Brought over and expanded language fromMarch 2024 blog post FAQ about site signals.

Why: To make it easier for those interested to understand through our documentation that we have both page-level and site-wide signals used in ranking.

November 13

Added information on howC2PA metadata can appear in Search

What: Added information on how Google extracts C2PA metadata for use in Search.

Why: Google Search now supports this metadata in the "About this image" feature.

November 1

Added notice about links for large websites with differing mobile and desktop pages

What: Added a best practice about making sure all links are present on the mobile version to thecrawl budget documentation.

Why: For large websites with separate HTML on mobile and desktop versions, the discovery of new pages can be slower if the mobile version does not include all the links that are present on the desktop version.

October 2024

October 24

New documentation for Google Trends

What: Added a page explaininghow to get started with Google Trends.

Why: Google Trends can help you better understand how people find information on Google Search, which can help you to develop your content strategy and refine how you talk to your audience.

Updating favicon size and aspect ratio requirements

What: Updated thefavicon guidelines to state that favicons must have a 1:1 aspect ratio and be at least 8x8px in size, with a strong recommendation for using a higher resolution favicon of at least 48x48px.

Why: To reflect the actual requirements for favicons.

October 23

Clarifying URL parameter best practices

What: Added a URL parameters best practice to theURL structure documentation.

Why: To make it easier to find guidance about URL parameters, as it was previously only mentioned in thefaceted navigation blog post.

October 7

Clarifying support for robots.txt fields

What: Clarified that fields that aren't listed in ourrobots.txt documentation aren't supported.

Why: We sometimes get questions about fields that aren't explicitly listed as supported, and we want to make it clear that they aren't.

October 3

Adding support for certifications

What: AddedCertification markup support for merchant listings in theproduct structured data documentation.

Why: Starting in April 2025, we're replacing theEnergyConsumptionDetails type with the more robustCertification type, as the new type supports more countries and a broader scope of certifications.

October 2

Removingnoarchive

What: Moved thenoarchive rule to ahistorical reference section in therobotsmeta tag documentation.

Why: The cached link feature is no longer available in Google Search results. You don't need to remove themeta tag, as other search engines and services may be using it.

October 1

Clarifying dynamically-generatedProduct markup

What: Added two best practices for handling structured data when optimizing for shopping results in our documentation onproduct markup andgenerating structured data with JavaScript. We recommend puttingProduct markup in the initial HTML for best results, and making sure that your server can handle increased traffic if you're generatingProduct markup with JavaScript.

Why: To clarify that JavaScript-generated markup is supported for ecommerce sites, but there are some best practices to keep in mind.

September 2024

September 25

Spam policy clarifications

What: Clarified some wording in ourspam policies for Google web search to focus more on what web spam is and the tactics involved. Also integrated anexplanation of close involvement from our blog post for easier reference, and clarified that trying to circumvent our policies can also result in ranking lower or not at all.

Why: We review and refresh our documentation periodically. This update is part of that process.

September 24

Removing thecache: search operator documentation

What: Removed thecache: search operator documentation.

Why: Thecache: search operator no longer works in Google Search.

September 23

Adding support for sale pricing

What: Added thepriceType property to themerchant listing documentation. Also added newsale pricing examples.

Why: To make it easier for merchants to specify sale pricing through structured data and bring parity withprice features in Merchant Center.

September 17

Migrated the JavaScript guidance for infinite scroll

What: Migrated guidance from the blog post on infinite scroll to ourdocumentation for infinite scroll. There is no change in the guidance.

Why: To make it easier to find our recommendations on infinite scroll and make sure it's still up to date.

September 16

Updating the HTTP user agent string ofGoogleProducer

What: Updated the URL in theGoogleProducer HTTP user agent string in the documentation forGoogle's user-triggered fetchers to match the value used by the actual fetcher.

Why: The HTTP user agent string used byGoogleProducer was recently updated and future fetches will use the new value.

Adding content encoding information to the crawler documentation

What: Added information about the content encodings (compressions) supported byGoogle's crawlers and user-triggered fetchers. This is just documentation change, no change in behavior.

Why: We realized we never actually documented the content encodings Google's crawlers support, even though weblogged about it in the past.

Reorganizing the crawler documentation

What: Reorganized the documentation forGoogle's crawlers and user-triggered fetchers. We also added explicit notes about what product each crawler affects, and added a robots.txt snippet for each crawler to demonstrate how to use the user agent tokens. There were no meaningful changes to the content otherwise.

Why: The documentation grew very long which limited our ability to extend the content about our crawlers and user-triggered fetchers.

September 11

Clarifying Indexing API usage guidelines

What: Clarified thatsubmissions to the Indexing API are subject to spam detection.

Why: Usage of the Indexing API is subject to spam detection, and attempts to exceed quotas may result in revoked access.

September 10

Video markup acceptsineligibleRegion

What: Added theineligibleRegion property to the video structured data documentation.

Why: Google accepts theineligibleRegion property as another way torestrict a video.

September 4

Clarifying quota and usage of the Indexing API

What: Clarified that thedefault quota is for setting up the Indexing API, and how torequest approval and quota. Also corrected a documentation error forDefaultRequestsPerMinutePerProject quota (it's always been a 380 quota).

Why: To better explain that the default quota is for initial setup and testing, and it requires additional approval for usage and resource provisioning.

August 2024

August 30

Adding support for AVIF

What: Added AVIF to the list ofsupported image formats.

Why:Google Search now supports AVIF.

August 26

Clarifying how organization markup is used

What: Updated theintroduction for organization markup to clarify how the markup is used in Google Search.

Why: To better explain that some properties can influence which logo is shown, while others are used behind the scenes.

Addingog:title to the list of title link sources

What: Addedog:title to thelist of title link sources.

Why: Google Search can use content withinog:titlemeta tags to automatically generate title links.

August 23

Improving the Video SEO documentation

What: Overhauled thevideo SEO best practices. Notably, we clarified thevideo indexing criteria andtechnical requirements, added a newwatch page section, and expanded our examples.

Why: Based on feedback submissions, we revisited our video SEO guidance to clarify what's eligible for a video result and how site owners can make it easier for Google to find their videos.

Clarifying how profile page and discussion forum markup is used

What: Updated howprofile page anddiscussion forum markup is used in Google Search.

Why: Perspectives was renamed to Forums in Google Search.

August 20

Introducing the Google-CloudVertexBot crawler

What: Added Google-CloudVertexBot to thelist of Google crawlers, a new crawler that crawls sites on the site owners' request when buildingVertex AI Agents.

Why: The new crawler was introduced to help site owners identify the new crawler traffic.

August 15

Improvements to the core updates documentation

What: Restructured thecore updates documentation so it has clearer sections and includes information from other docs (such astraffic drops and theself-assessment guidance). Reduced duplication with thehelpful content FAQ and redirected that page. Moved thehelpful content system section to the archived section of the ranking systems guide.

Why: To better help site owners assess a traffic drop and make improvements to their site. Also, thehelpful content system became part of core ranking systems (as we previously shared in March 2024).

Clarifying how AI Overviews are logged in Search Console

What: Clarified thatAI Overviews are counted and logged in Search Console in the Performance report. This is a documentation clarification on methodology only, and not a change in Search Console reports.

Why: To confirm the methodology behind how clicks, impressions, and position are recorded for AI Overviews, just as we do for featured snippets, carousels, and other types of Search results.

August 9

Removing Notes documentation

What: Removed the documentation about Notes.

Why: The Notes experiment is no longer available. If youcreated a note, your notes content is available to download usingGoogle Takeout through the end of August 2024.

July 2024

July 31

Geo Data Upload string and URL update

What: Replaced the Geo Data Upload tool references in theGet on Google documentation with the Google Maps Content Partners resource.

Why: The Geo Data Upload name and support pages are deprecated.

July 31

Non-consensual fake imagery update

What: Clarified how Google handles sites with a high proportion of sexually explicit non-consensual, fake imagery in ourspam policies andranking systems guide.

July 24

Google Publisher Center user agent string update

What: Changed theGoogle Publisher Center user agent string fromGoogleProducer; (+http://goo.gl/7y4SX) toGoogleProducer; (+https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/overview-google-crawlers#googleproducer). If you hardcoded the old value in your code, update the string to avoid potential bugs.

Why: goo.gl is going away.

July 19

A note about Notes

What: Added a note about the status of Notes to theNotes documentation.

Why: Notes is winding down at the end of July 2024.

July 11

Adding more detail about shipping and return policy precedence

What: Added Search Console shipping and return settings as an option and expanded on how precedence works in theorganization andmerchant listing documentation.

Why:Search Console now supports shipping and return settings, and we want to make it clearer how overriding works when combining various configurations.

July 10

Expanding translated results to more languages

What: Updated thetranslated results documentation to include the following languages: Arabic, Gujarati, Korean, Persian, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, Vietnamese.

Why: Translated results now support more languages.

July 9

Supporting a new IPTC digital source type

What: AddedcompositeWithTrainedAlgorithmicMedia to theIPTC photo metadata documentation.

Why: Google can now extract thecompositeWithTrainedAlgorithmicMedia IPTC NewsCode.

July 5

Clarifying fragment URL guidance

What: Clarified our guidance about fragment URLs in theURL structure documentation.

Why: To make it easier to find the guideline about fragment URLs, as it was previously only mentioned in the JavaScript and mobile sites documentation.

June 2024

June 21

Clarifying return policy precedence

What: Clarified in theorganization-level return policy documentation that product-level return policy markup takes precedence over organization-level return policy markup. If you choose to use both markup (whether it's at the product- or organization-level, or both) and settings in Merchant Center, the Merchant Center return policy information takes precedence for any products submitted in your Merchant Center product feeds.

Why: To address user feedback about which return policy method takes precedence.

June 20

Marking up categories with many items for structured data carousels (beta)

What: Added guidance on how to mark up categories with many items to thestructured data carousels (beta).

Why: We received a question through our feedback button about how to implement this markup for categories with many items, such as paginated content or infinite scroll.

June 12

Clarifyinglink tag attributes

What: Clarified in ourhreflang documentation thatlink tags for denoting alternate versions of a page must not be combined in a singlelink tag.

Why: While debugging a report from a site owner we noticed we don't have this quirk documented.

June 11

Adding support forOrganization-level return policies

What: Added documentation on how to specify a generalreturn policy for anOrganization as a whole.

Why: This makes it easier to define and maintain general return policies for an entire site.

Removing home activity documentation

What: Removed documentation onhome activity structured data.

Why: The home activity feature no longer appears in Google Search results.

June 4

Publishing a new video SEO case study

What: Added a new case study about howVidio brought more locally relevant video-on-demand (VOD) content for Indonesian users through Google Search.

Why: To show how adding video structured data and following best practices can improve video discoverability.

Updating Discussion Forum guidelines

What: Confirm thatSocialMediaPosting markup is also supported and allowonly image or video in comments without text.

Why: To more accurately reflect how the data ingestion for these features work and to remove noise in validation reports.

Resolving the issue with site names and internal pages

What: Removed the warning about the issue that was preventing newsite names from propagating to internal pages.

Why: The issue has been resolved. Keep in mind that it takes time for Google to recrawl and process the new information, including recrawling your internal pages.

May 2024

May 23

Addingepub to indexable file types

What: Added EPUB to the list of indexable file types.

Why: Google Search now supports epub.

May 16

Introducing theGoogleOther-Image andGoogleOther-Video crawlers

What: Added two new crawlers,GoogleOther-Image andGoogleOther-Video, which are versions of GoogleOther optimized for fetching image and video bytes respectively. While at it, we also updated the list of user agent strings of GoogleOther to better reflect the most active user agent versions.

Why: The new crawlers were launched to better support crawling of binary data that may be used for research and development.

May 14

Introduced AI Overviews in the documentation

What: Added a separate page forAI Overviews and your website, and updated the existing pages forrobots meta tags andsubscription and paywalled content accordingly.

Why: AI Overviews in Search are replacing Search Generative Experience.

May 1

Restructuring theProduct structured data documentation

What: Reorganized theProduct structured data documentation into three pages:intro to product markup,product snippet, andmerchant listing. Added a new section aboutdeciding which markup to use.

Why: The previous tabbed structure was difficult to navigate and find the property you were looking for.

April 2024

April 26

Improvements to the debugging traffic drops documentation

What: Expanded on the effects ofalgorithmic updates and how to identify them. Simplified the section on policy and manual actions to be about spam issues.

Why: To better help site owners identify reasons for a traffic drop.

April 25

Exporting an additional range of Google fetcher IP addresses

What:Added an additional list of IP addresses for fetchers that are controlled by Google products, as opposed to, for example, a user controlledApps Script. The new list,user-triggered-fetchers-google.json, contains IP ranges that have been in use for a long time.

Why: It became technically possible to export the ranges.

Removing the iOS variant of AdsBot Mobile Web

What: Removing the iOS variant of AdsBot Mobile Web from thelist of Google crawlers.

Why: Simplify maintenance of AdsBot.

April 24

Adding definitions for faviconrel attribute values

What: Added definitions for each supportedrel attribute value in thefavicon documentation.

Why: We got a question about which value to use for a favicon and if there's a difference.

April 17

Removing video carousel (limited access) documentation

What: Removed video carousel guidance from thevideo structured data documentation.

Why: We initially tested video carousel markup with a group of site owners, and ultimately found that it wasn't useful for the ecosystem at scale. You can leave the markup on your site so that search engines and other systems can better understand your web page.

April 16

Clarifying image extraction source

What:Clarified that images are only extracted from thesrc attribute ofimg tags.

Why: While not a new change, we occasionally get questions about what HTML elements Google Search can extract images from.

April 11

Clarifying the beta carousels feature

What: Clarified that thebeta carousel feature is for sites that have a summary page that links out to other detail pages on their website. The markup must be on the summary page, and you don't need to add markup to the detail pages in order to be eligible for this feature.

Why: Based on feedback and questions you submitted, we added more precise guidance on what use cases are supported and what page you need to add markup. This is a documentation update only; there's no material change in feature requirements or eligibility.

March 2024

March 28

Clarified our changelog entry regarding availability of Web Stories

What: Clarified ourFebruary 8 changelog entry regarding the feature availability of Web Stories in Google Images.

Why: Web Stories continue to appear in Google Images, just as other web content may appear, but Web Stories no longer appear with the Web Stories icon in Google Images. Also, a bug that was blocking Search Console reporting for these URLs in Google Imagesis now resolved.

March 25

Added 3D models for products

What: We added new3DModel markup support for merchant listings in theproduct structured data documentation.

Why: Sometimes 3D models appear on pages with multiple products and are not clearly connected with any of them. This markup lets site owners link a 3D model to a specific product.

March 12

Clarified references to page experience and Core Web Vitals

What: Clarified how we talk about page experience and Core Web Vitals in our documentation onpage experience,signed exchanges andecommerce pagination. Additionally updated to reflect thatINP is now a Core Web Vital.

Why:INP replaces FID as a Core Web Vital.

March 6

Cleaning up recipe documentation

What: Removed guided recipes from therecipe structured data documentation.

Why: As thisGoogle Assistant feature was removed, we're updating our recipe markup documentation to reflect that change. There's no change needed from site owners; all properties continue to be recommended for use in Google Search.

March 5

New spam policies

We added 3 new spam policies:expired domain abuse,scaled content abuse, andsite reputation abuse. Also added a newFAQ on helpful content. Check outour blog post for more details on what changed and why.

Generic Chrome version for Google StoreBot

What: Updated the Google StoreBot user agent (inOverview of Google crawlers) to use a placeholder version of Chrome. If you hardcoded the old value in your code, update it to ignore the version.

Why: To make it easier for the Google Shopping team to maintain the StoreBot crawler.

February 2024

February 29

Adding new carousel documentation (beta)

What: Added documentation forstructured data carousels (beta).

Why: To make it easier for site owners to add carousel markup for new query types, such as for travel, local, and shopping queries.

Added opt out information for place entities in Page Insights

What: Added information about how site owners canopt out of display in the Place Entity feature in Page Insights.

Why: To make it easier for site owners to control how their content appears on Google.

February 20

Added support for product variants

What: Added newproduct variant structured data documentation. Also added a newisVariantOf property to theproduct structured data documentation and clarified that Googlesupport product variants with distinct URLs.

Why: To better support product variant scenarios for ecommerce sites. Since product variants can be a complex and important concept for ecommerce websites (especially for categories like apparel and electronics), we're providing more examples and guidance on how to add product variant structured data.

Clarified return fees markup for products

What: Clarified when to useFreeReturn versusReturnShippingFees as value forreturnFees for product returns in theproduct structured data documentation.

Why: To better support more granular shipping and return fee scenarios.

February 15

Clarifying the extraction ofrel="canonical" annotations

What: Clarified thatrel="canonical" annotations with certain attributes are not used for canonicalization.

Why: Therel="canonical" annotations help Google determine which URL of a set of duplicates is the canonical. Adding certain attributes to thelink element changes the meaning of the annotation to denote a different device or language version. This is a documentation change only; Google has always ignored theserel="canonical" annotations for canonicalization purposes.

February 9

Clarifying the use of spaces in product SKUs

What: Clarified what characters are allowed in product SKUs in theProduct structured data documentation.

Why: To better explain why asku value might be invalid in the Rich Results Test.

Image removals documentation refresh

What: Part of our ongoing efforts to keep our documentation accurate, we updated the documentation forimage removals with more precise language, and addressed some documentation feedback.

Why: We review and, if necessary, refresh our documentation periodically. This update is part of that process.

February 8

Updated the availability of Web Stories

What: Updated thefeature availability of Web Stories.

Why: To make sure our documentation aligns with how the feature appears in Google Search. Web Stories don't appear in Google Images with an icon anymore, and the grid view is now a carousel view in Search results.

Updated the description of the Google-Extended product token

What: With the name change of Bard to Gemini Apps, we clarified that Gemini Apps is affected byGoogle-Extended, and, based on publisher feedback, we specified that Google-Extended doesn't affect Google Search.

February 7

Updated Dynamic Search Ad targets crawl frequency

What: Updated the crawl frequency for Dynamic Search Ad targets in themanaging crawl budget guide.

Why: To reduce stress on sites, Dynamic Search Ads crawls now occur less frequently, 21 days instead of 14 days.

February 6

Revisited JavaScript documentation

What: Reviewed our guidance onJavaScript SEO basics,fixing Search-related JavaScript problems,lazy-loading content to remove outdated or unnecessary information. We updated our documentation ondynamic rendering to clarify it's a deprecated workaround.

Why: Feedback from you showed us there are opportunities to improve and clarify a few aspects. A few things, like dynamic rendering, have evolved in the past few years and our documentation now reflects these developments.

February 5

A new case study

What: Added a new case study about howHow Wix generated value for their users by integrating Google APIs.

Why: To explain how a CMS platform can integrate Google APIs directly into their UI, and what impact it had for their users.

February 2

Revamping the SEO Starter Guide

TheSEO Starter Guide got a refresh: we removed outdated content, streamlined and simplified other parts, and added a few sections. Check out ourblog post for more in-depth explanation on what we changed and why.

January 2024

January 25

Refreshing the Googlebot documentation

What: Part of our ongoing efforts to keep our documentation accurate, we updated the documentation forGooglebot with more precise language. There was no actionable change to the documentation otherwise.

Why: We review and, if necessary, refresh our documentation periodically. This update is part of that process.

January 10

More accessible anchor texts

What: Part of our ongoing efforts to make our documentation more accessible, we updated various anchor texts so they're more descriptive of the target page.

Why: Depending on the settings of a screen reader, the user may be jumping from link to link on a page, thus eachanchor text on a page should be descriptive, even without the surrounding context.

January 9

Switching@id references to use hashtags

What: Switch all structured data code examples that use in-page@id references to use hashtags instead. For example, theclips example in our recipe documentation.

Why: It's a schema best practice to use hashtags as resolvable in-page node identifiers in RDF, and we want our examples follow best practices. However, you don't need to change your existing IDs if you're still using in-page identifiers.

Adding support forsuggestedAge toProduct

What: Added support for thesuggestedAge property as an alternative tosuggestedMaxAge andsuggestedMinAge. Clarified the list of possible values for age ranges in ourProduct structured data documentation.

Why: We want to make it easier and more flexible for people to specify age ranges for a product. Also, the previous wording was confusing and didn't map well to the Merchant Center documentation about product age ranges.

January 5

Clarifying primary source of snippets

What: Clarified in ourdocumentation about snippets that the primary source of the snippet is the page content itself.

Why: The previous wording incorrectly implied that structured data and the meta description HTML element are the primary sources for snippets.

2023 updates

December 2023

• December 19: Further clarified how Google handles sites with a high proportion of non-consensual explicit imagery in ourspam policies andranking systems guide.
• December 18: Added transcript ofDecember 2023 Google SEO Office Hours.
• December 14: Updated theDiscussion Forum andQ&A page documentation to explicitly clarify that author URLs are recommended.
• December 13: Updated theOrganization documentation to explain thattelephone andemail can be specified at the Organization level besidescontactPoint.
• December 12: Added information aboutcourse info availability.
• December 4: Addedvacation rental structured data documentation.
• December 1: Removed mentions of the Mobile Friendly Test and the Mobile Usability report throughout our documentation,as they are going away.

November 2023

• November 29: Add newOrganization documentation, which merges the Logo documentation and includes more organizational information (such as contact info, legal name, and business identifiers).
• November 27: Addedprofile page structured data documentation,discussion forum structured data documentation, and expanded recommendations forQ&A page structured data documentation.
• November 15:
  • Added documentation forNotes and your website.
  • Addedcourse info structured data documentation.
  • Added a best practice aboutavoiding flight prices in title links, as Google is less likely to show this information when generating title links for flight pages.
• November 14: Since we received many questions about the Google Safety crawler over the past year, added it to thelist of Google crawlers.
• November 8: Updated thereviews system documentation to explain that this system is being improved at a regular and ongoing pace.
• November 1: Added a recommendation to include time and timezone information inVideo structured data.

October 2023

• October 18:
  • Added a reference to the Rich Results Test in theSubscription and paywalled structured data documentation, as this data type is now supported in the testing tool. Also added aGenerative AI in Search considerations section. Added information about SGE (Search Generative Experience) to theRobots meta tag,data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications page for thenosnippet andmax-snippet rules.
  • Clarified in thefavicon documentation that both the favicon file and the home page of the site must be allowed for crawling by Googlebot-Image and Googlebot respectively. Also removed information about the Google Favicon HTTPuser-agent string throughout our documentation, as this is no longer used. The removal of the HTTPuser-agent string means no changes for site owners. Google Favicon depended on theGooglebot-Image andGooglebot robots.txt user agent tokens, which remain supported.
• October 17:
  • Added a reminder to provide the timezone inArticle structured data and clarified what happens if a timezone isn't provided.
  • Added mention aboutGooglebot's timezone, which is PST.
• October 16: Addedvehicle listing structured data documentation.
• October 13: Removed the host group visual element from theVisual Elements gallery, as it no longer appears in Google Search results.

September 2023

• September 29: Added more explanation aboutwhy Discover traffic may change over time.
• September 28: Added a new user agent token,Google-Extended, which acts as a new control that web publishers can use to manage whether their sites help improve Bard and Vertex AI generative APIs, including future generations of models that power those products.
• September 27: Clarified how Google handles sites with a high proportion of CSAM content in ourspam policies andranking systems guide.
• September 26:
  • Revamped two previously published blog posts into new documentation pages with tips todebug drops in search traffic andimprove SEO with a Search Console bubble chart.
  • Merged two introductory Search Console articles intoone starter guide.
• September 22: Clarified in thedeveloper's guide that Google Search currently may not index content inside CSS content properties as that isn't part of the DOM.
• September 14:
  • Added new guidance abouthosting third-party content and more explanation onwhat to do after a helpful content system update (perhaps you don't need to do anything, or perhaps self-assess your content).
  • Added new points aboutremoving content or changing dates to the help page on how to create helpful, reliable people-first content.
  • Removed theHow-to rich result case study, asthis feature is deprecated.
  • Removed theHow-to structured data documentation, as this rich result is no longer shown in search results, on both desktop and mobile devices.Read more in the blog post.
  • Updated theFAQ structured data documentation to state that the feature is only shown for well-known, authoritative government and health websites.
• September 11: Fixed a typo in the user-agent string of theGoogle-InspectionTool common crawler.
• September 7: Updated thefeature availability section in the site names documentation, assite names are now available in all languages where Google Search is available.
• September 6: Added transcript ofSeptember 2023 Google SEO Office Hours.

August 2023

• August 24: Added CSV tothe list of indexable file types.
• August 15: Clarified that we only support standard schema.org enumeration values forlocal business opening hours, and these values must be in English per the schema.org specification.
• August 9: Added transcript ofAugust 2023 Google SEO Office Hours.
• August 2:
  • Removed unneeded mention of"@id" in thesite names documentation.
  • Clarified in thelocal business structured data documentation that thereview andaggregateRating properties are only recommended for sites that capture reviews about other local businesses. This is not new information; see theguidelines about self-serving reviews andthe update on our blog post from 2019.

July 2023

• July 28: Added new sections to the site name documentation:what to do if your preferred site name isn't selected, guidance aroundchoosing an alternative name, and information about aknown issue. Site names are now available on both desktop and mobile devices.
• July 20: Based on user feedback, we clarifiedwhat characters Google Search supports in URLs.
• July 19: Added a new case study abouthow video SEO features helped three global publishers reach their audiences.
• July 18: Removed therelated: operator from thesearch operators documentation, as it's no longer supported.
• July 11: Added transcript ofJuly 2023 Google SEO Office Hours.

June 2023

• June 13: Added examples of how to handle derivatives, integrals, and limits in thepotentialAction.mathExpression-input field in theMathSolver documentation.
• June 7: Added transcript ofJune 2023 Google SEO Office Hours.

May 2023

• May 30: Added.ai to thelist of TLDs that Google Search treats as a global TLD (gTLD).
• May 26: Added arecommendation for adult sites with age gate interstitials.
• May 24:
  • Updated thelist of countries where the events search experience is launched to only include those where users can see that experience. The previous list also included regions where users could see events in Knowledge Panels.
  • In November 2020 we accidentally updated theGoogle Read Aloud user agent string in our documentation, replacing the+https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/1061943 crawler documentation URL with+https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/crawling/overview-google-crawlers. We reverted that change.
• May 22: Updated our documentation onsite names to mention subdomains.
• May 17:
  • Updated thetranslated results documentation to include the following languages: Bengali, English, French, German, Marathi, Portuguese, Spanish, Tamil, Telugu.
  • Added a new crawler,Google-InspectionTool to the list of Google crawlers.
• May 10:
  • Added a new recommendation forDigital Source Type to the Image Metadata documentation.
  • Added a banner to pages about Core Web Vitals for informing aboutInteraction to Next Paint (INP) as a replacement for FID in March 2024.
• May 4:
  • Moved thevideodescription property to the recommended table, asit's no longer required.
  • Added transcript ofMay 2023 Google SEO Office Hours.
• May 2: Updated ourdocumentation about canonicalization with explicit recommendations for syndicated content.

April 2023

• April 28: Removed the opt out section fromEducation Q&A structured data documentation.
• April 26: Increased the maximum number of return countries (applicableCountry) from 25 to 50 in thereturn policy information in the Product structured data documentation.
• April 24: Reorganized the page aboutGoogle's crawlers so the user agents are now in logical clusters based on their capabilities and triggers.
• April 21: Added more information about thedifferent crawlers Google uses, along with the JSON formatted list of IP addresses the different crawlers use.
• April 20: Added a new generic crawler,GoogleOther, to thelist of Google crawlers.
• April 19: Updated theguidance on creating helpful content to include page experience, revised thepage experience help page, partially moving content to a newCore Web Vitals page.
• April 17: Addedreturn policy information to the Product structured data documentation.
• April 12: Added transcript ofApril 2023 Google SEO Office Hours.
• April 3: Updated the eligibility criteria for thepackage tracking documentation Early Adoption Program to focus on India, Japan, and Brazil.

March 2023

• March 17: We further clarified that the15MB fetch size limit applies to each fetch of the individual subresources referenced in the HTML as well (in particular, JavaScript and CSS files).
• March 13:
  • Updated the User Agent string for AdsBot Mobile Web Android. If you hardcoded the old value in your code, update the string to avoid potential bugs.
  • Added an overview page for theGoogle SEO Office Hours.
• March 9: Added transcript ofMarch 2023 Google SEO Office Hours.
• March 2: Removed South Korea from theavailable regions for the job search experience on Google.

February 2023

• February 23: Removed the hosting location requirement from thefavicon documentation; you don't need to host the favicon in the same domain in order to be eligible for a favicon in Google Search results.
• February 22: Clarified that Discover uses many of the same signals as Search, in both theDiscover documentation and thehelpful content system page.
• February 15: Added newbest practices for links.
• February 13:
  • Simplified the wording in thePolicy circumvention section of our spam policies based on user feedback.
  • Based on user feedback, we revamped ourdocumentation about sitemaps. Notably, we reduced duplication betweenthe sitemaps protocol and our documentation, added more examples to our documentation about sitemap extensions, and added a new document about how tocombine sitemap extensions.
• February 10: Added theGoogleProducer user agent to the list of Google crawlers (this is not a new user agent; this is a documentation update only).
• February 8: Added new guidance aboutthinking in terms of "Who, How, and Why" in relation to how content is produced.
• February 3: Clarified whyJSON-LD is recommended for structured data: it's because it's generally the easiest for website owners to implement and maintain. All 3 supported formats are equally fine for Google, as long as they are valid and implemented properly per the feature's documentation.
• February 2: Refreshed our documentation about canonicalization. To better help site owners, the original documentation is split in three distinct sections:
  1. What is URL canonicalization.
  2. How to specify a canonical withrel="canonical" and other methods.
  3. Fix canonicalization issues.
• February 1: Added a new section forAuthors on the Google Search Central Blog.

January 2023

• January 31: Added transcript ofJanuary 2023 Google SEO Office Hours.
• January 25: Added a new case study abouthow Vimeo improved Video SEO at scale for their customers by using theindexifembedded rule combined withnoindex and adding structured data.
• January 23:
  • Added guidance about what to include in theRSS feed for the Follow feature in Google Discover: the<title> element and your per item<link> elements.
  • Updated theImages best practices to clarify thatGoogle parses<img> elements (even when they're enclosed in other elements such as<picture> elements) when indexing images. Also updated the alt text and filenames in the examples to be more descriptive.
• January 6: Clarified thatwww andm prefixes for domain names are generally considered as root domain names forSite Names in Google Search.
• January 5: Added information about theIf-Modified-Since request header to ourdocumentation about managing crawl budget.
• January 3: Removed the 110 character limit for theheadline property in theArticle structured data documentation. There's no hard character limit; instead, we recommend that you write concise titles as long titles may be truncated on some devices.

2022 updates

December 2022

• December 29: Added transcript ofDecember 2022 Google SEO Office Hours.
• December 19: Removed theWeb Light documentation and retired theWeb Light user agent. We introduced Web Light to enable us to serve faster, lighter pages to people searching on entry-level devices. While this feature has worked as intended and enabled broader access to the richness of the web, increased affordability of more powerful smartphones has diminished the need for such functionality. We remain committed to evolving and refining the Search experience to meet the changing needs of our users.
• December 14:
  • Added link spam specific information to thespam updates documentation.
  • Added a new page onhow to use the Google Search Status Dashboard.
  • UpdatedLearning Video structured data to state that thetext field is recommended instead of required for Problem walkthrough videos and clips.
• December 13:
  • Added a section fortranscripts from the Google SEO Office Hours.
  • Added the newVisual Elements Gallery of Google Search.
  • Cleaned up and consolidated ourmobile site and mobile-first indexing related documentation. Unsurprisingly, there's no additions.
• December 6: Updated theHelpful content system page to state that the classifier works globally across all languages.
• December 2: Added two new myths to thecrawl budget documentation.noindex isn't a good way to control crawl budget (but can be a method to indirectly free up crawl budget in the long run), and pages that serve4xx status codes (except429) don't waste crawl budget.
• December 1: Retired theDuplex on the web user agent.

November 2022

• November 23: Added descriptions to enumerated properties, such as availability, inProduct structured data to support page translation to non-English languages.
• November 22:
  • Added a list of currently supported languages forvideo key moments.
  • Clarified the eligibility criteria for rich result appearance in theGeneral structured data guidelines.
• November 21:
  • Added a new section onPolicy circumvention and clarified our phrasing in theLegal andpersonal information removals sections to align with definitions of those systems in the newGuide to Google Search ranking systems.
  • Added a newGuide to Google Search ranking systems.
• November 15: Removed theMobile recharge Early Adoptors Program signup page, as we received enough signups.
• November 14: UpdatedReview Snippet structured data to recommend using dot separators for decimal ratings. If you're currently using comma separators for decimal ratings in your markup, you'll still be eligible for review snippets. However, we recommend that you update your markup for a more accurate interpretation.
• November 9: Clarified that it's fine to use JavaScript to insertcrawlable links into pages.
• November 8:
  • Clarified in thesitemap documentation for localized versions that child elements don't count towards the total number of URLs in a sitemap file.
  • Added notes to theAdsBot user agents that they ignore the global (*)user-agent rules in robots.txt. This was documented already in ourrobots.txt documentation; we added the notes for consistency.

October 2022

• October 24: Clarified thatsite names are supported at the domain level, and not at the subdomain or subdirectory level.Favicons are supported at the domain and subdomain level, and not at the subdirectory level.
• October 14: Added thesite name documentation.
• October 13:
  • Added new pages for the following Google ranking updates. The information itself isn't new; the pages contain consolidated information from previous blog posts about each of these updates.
    • Google Search's core updates and your website
    • Google Search's helpful content update and your website
    • Google Search's product reviews update and your website
    • Google Search's spam updates and your website
  • Refreshed and renamed the Webmaster Guidelines. Notable changes include:
    • Google Search Essentials: Replaces the Webmaster Guidelines overview page. It includes new sections: technical requirements, spam policies, and key best practices.
    • Google Search technical requirements: Covers what Google needs from a web page to show it in Google Search.
    • Spam policies for Google web search: Replaces the Quality Guidelines section of the Webmaster Guidelines. It's been rewritten to cover more relevant examples and use more precise language. Notable updates include:
      • Link spam: Consolidates previous pages on Paid links and Link schemes.
      • Malware and malicious behaviors: Consolidates information that was previously in the Security section on our site.
      • Hacked content: Consolidates information that was previously in the Security section on our site.
      • Thin affliliate pages: Consolidates previous pages on Thin content and Affiliate programs.

      New sections include:

      • Misleading functionality
      • Copyright-removal requests
      • Online harassment removals
      • Scam and fraud
    • Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content: This document consolidates advice from thehelpful content blog post and thecore updates post; none of the content is new.
• October 12: Added support for image credits to theImage Metadata structured data documentation. Previously, you could only provide image credit information with IPTC photo metadata.
• October 7: Added examples of product review pages toWrite high quality product reviews.

September 2022

• September 20: Added theGoogle Site Verifier user agent.
• September 13:
  • Major update toProduct structured data documentation to document requirements for eligibility to Merchant Listings experiences based on structured data. See the blogNew Search Console Merchant Listings report: expanding eligibility with Product structured data for details.
  • Re-added theitemReviewed.datePublished property. This was removed accidentally as part of the previous update to theFact Check structured data documentation.
• September 9: Removed thedatePublished property from theFact Check structured data documentation. Currently, theClaimReview publish date isn't used in the Fact Check rich result.
• September 2: Migrated the documentation about thefile types Google can index from the Search Console Help Center (the content hasn't changed).
• September 1: Added more examples to showhow meta descriptions could be improved.

August 2022

• August 31: Added a note on the use of JavaScript to add, change, or removemeta tags on a page tothe list of meta and inline tags Google Search understands.
• August 29:
  • Added thefull list of supported academic values foreducationalLevel in the Learning video structured data documentation.
  • Clarified how to specify multiple types inLocal Business structured data. If you have multiple types, specify them in an array (additionalType isn't supported).
• August 24:
  • Addedcontent guidelines to the Education Q&A structured data documentation.
  • Removed references to thedeprecated International Targeting report in Search Console. The recommendations described in our documentation aboutmanaging multiregional sites andlocalized versions of your pages remain relevant.
• August 22: Updated theArticle structured data documentation to reflect thatArticle markup is open to all types of pages (asannounced in 2020 with the page experience update).
• August 11: Removed our documentation about rich-media files, such as Silverlight and Flash. Turns out it's not 2005 anymore.
• August 10:
  • Added thegtin12 property to theProduct structured data documentation. This has been supported; it's a documentation change only. Clarified that you can use the genericgtin property for all GTINs, but we recommend that you use the most specific one if possible.
  • Updated thedynamic rendering documentation to explain that this isn't a recommended solution, and is a workaround if you have no other choice. Instead we recommend server-side rendering, static rendering, or client-side rendering with hydration.
• August 9: Added best practices for feeds to theFollow feature documentation. We recommend that you:
  • Use a descriptive title for your RSS feed, just like you would for a web page.
  • For multiple feeds, we recommend that you use a single feed. Both methods are still supported, but we clarified that a single feed is easier for you to maintain and for users to subscribe to your feed.
• August 8: Clarified that we don't support the URL form for GTINs inProduct structured data. Make sure to use the numerical GTIN form.
• August 5: Added documentation about thepros and cons enhancement for editorial product review pages.

July 2022

• July 19: Standardized how we refer toheadings and title text on the page. Previously we used the word headline, but that can be confusing in other languages.
• July 13: Updated the User Agent string for AdsBot Mobile Web. If you hardcoded the old value in your code, update the string to avoid potential bugs.
• July 7: Added a new page forGoogle Search ranking updates. This is not new information; it's a compiled list of things we've previously confirmed onour blog or onTwitter.
• July 6: Reorganized the navigational structure to be based on topic instead of level. Removed duplicate guides that were aimed at basic or beginner level, as these documents were duplicating guidance already explained in theSEO Starter Guide.
• July 4: Clarified that you must add three courses to be eligible for theCourse rich result. This is not a new requirement; it was previously only documented in theCarousel documentation.

June 2022

• June 30: Added information about using JavaScript toinject canonical link tags.
• June 23: Added information about how many bytes of textual content, such as HTML,Googlebot will crawl. ForFAQs on the matter, check out our blog post.
• June 22: Updated theJob Posting documentation to specify that when you use thejobLocation property, you must also include theaddressCountry property.
• June 17: Clarified thatproduct rich results support pages that focus on a single product, and that includes product variants where each product variant has a distinct URL.
• June 10: Documented newVary: Cookie support forsigned exchanges.
• June 3: Added a best practice forscript or language mismatches in titles. For<title> elements, use the same script and language as the page's primary content.
• June 1:
  • Added newauthor markup best practices to the Article structured data documentation.
  • Added new documentation aboutLearning Video structured data.

May 2022

• May 31: Removed theJob training structured data documentation. We initially tested this markup with a group of site owners, and ultimately found that it wasn't useful for the ecosystem at scale. This change doesn't affect any other features that may use Job training markup. You can leave the markup on your site so that search engines can better understand your web page.
• May 22: Added transparency guidelines for video thumbnails. Ensure that at least 80% of your thumbnail pixels have little or no transparency to enable video indexing.

• May 10:
  • Added newEducation Q&A documentation.
  • Added new documentation aboutusing valid page metadata.
  • Added newtroubleshooting tip about headlines in the title link documentation.
• May 6: Removed the deprecated tags and attributes from theImage andVideo sitemaps documentation. For more information, refer to ourannouncement about the deprecation.

April 2022

• April 14: Consolidated ourHow Search Works documentation for site owners by merging the basic, beginner, and advanced versions into one central document. While we cleaned up the language slightly, we haven't added anything new to the How Search Works documentation.

March 2022

• March 23: Added two more best practices whenwriting high quality product reviews for reviews comparing multiple products.
• March 17: Added a section to the SafeSearch documentation aboutallowing Google to fetch your video content files.

February 2022

• February 25: Removed a reference to the Crawl Stats report in thesigned exchange documentation. This is no longer relevant as of the update from November 4.
• February 11: Added link toSXG Validator Chrome extension in thesigned exchange documentation.

January 2022

• January 28: Merged our SafeSearch documentation intoone new document. We expanded on how SafeSearch works and added a troubleshooting section. The guidance remains the same:add theratingmeta tag to explicit pages andgroup explicit content in a separate location on your site.
• January 21: Added a newrobotsmeta tag,indexifembedded, to therobotsmeta tag documentation.Learn more about the new tag in our blog post.
• January 20: Added a note describing how to specifyCar markup and still haveProduct review snippet feature eligibility.
• January 18: Removed guidance about specifying a range for thecookTime,prepTime, andtotalTime properties in theRecipe documentation. Currently, the only supported method is an exact time; time ranges aren't supported. If you're currently specifying a time range and you'd like Google to better understand your time values, we recommend updating that value in your structured data to a single value (for example,"cookTime": "PT30M").

2021 updates

December 2021

• December 16: Converted our oldblog post about intrusive interstitials intoguidelines. There are no substantial changes compared to what we have in the blog post.
• December 1: AddedWrite high quality product reviews to bring together advice from several blog posts.

November 2021

• November 18: Explained how toopt out of Google Read Aloud and clarified thecrawling behavior of the user agent.
• November 17:
  • Added aninteractive checklist that suggests readings based on the profile users select.
  • Added documentation abouttranslated results and how toenable your ad network to work with translation-related Google Search features.
• November 16: Added a guideline aboutlogos and white backgrounds.
• November 10:
  • UpdatedLogo documentation to support new flexibility in using theImageObject type to specify an organization logo.
  • Published the list of Googlebot IP addresses.
• November 4: Removed the recommendation to verify that SXGs are well-formed from thesigned exchange documentation. Added a note that Google will automatically retry without an SXGAccept header in these cases.
• November 4: Updated thepage experience documentation to include theupcoming desktop rollout.
• November 2: Added a recommendation about creating a dedicated page for each video to theVideo best practices.

October 2021

• October 28: Removed the following structured data fields from documentation, since they are unused by Google Search and Rich Result Test doesn't flag warnings for them:
  • HowTo:description.
  • QAPage:mainEntity.suggestedAnswer.author,mainEntity.dateCreated,mainEntity.suggestedAnswer.dateCreated,mainEntity.acceptedAnswer.author,mainEntity.acceptedAnswer.dateCreated, andmainEntity.author.
  • SpecialAnnouncement:provider,audience,serviceType,address, andcategory.
• October 15: Added a requirement that theauthor.name field inReview snippets must be less than 100 characters to be eligible for use in Search features.
• October 13: Clarified thatVideoGame is not a valid node type forSoftware Apps. To make sure that your Software App is still eligible for a rich result appearance, co-type theVideoGame type with another supported type.
• October 8: Updated our documentation about titles and snippets in Google Search results. There are now two separate documents that explain each of these search result features:
  • Control your title links in search results: Created a new page to describe how to control title links in search results. Introduced a new term,title link, for the title of a search result on Google Search and other properties to help clarify when we mean the title link in search results versus a<title> element on a web page. Added examples ofhow Google may adjust title links. There aren't any changes to thebest practices for writing descriptive<title> elements.
  • Control your snippets in search results: Created a new page to describe how to control snippets in search results. The updates were minimal structural updates; there aren't any changes to theguidelines themselves.

September 2021

• September 27: Added new documentation onBest practices for ecommerce sites in Google Search.
• September 1: Added documentation about thebeta Follow feature and your website.

August 2021

• August 11: Added a new case study about howlarge images in Discover improve CTR and increase visits to publisher sites.
• August 9: TheSchema Markup Validator has stabilized, and Google now redirects the Structured Data Testing Tool to alanding page to help you select the right tool.
• August 6: Added a new recommendedauthor.url property to theArticle structured data documentation. Theurl property helps Google disambiguate the correct author of the article.

July 2021

• July 30: Added technical, content, and quality guidelines to theMath solver guidelines and removed solution page markup instructions to make it easier for site owners to get their math solver site on Search. It is fine to remove any existing solution page markup.
• July 29: Added a new case study about howMX Player boosted organic traffic 3x by maximizing video discoverability on Google.
• July 28:
  • Removedguidance about hosting multiple factchecks per page. To be eligible for the single fact check rich result, a page must only have oneClaimReview element.
  • Added details aboutsigned exchange cache lifetime.
• July 26: Added a requirement thatpriceRange fields inLocal business must be less than 100 characters to be eligible for use in Search features.
• July 22:
  • Added example use cases for theFAQ guideline about hidden content on the page. The user must be able to access the answer on the page, and clicking an expandable section to view the answer is a valid use case.
  • Removed the@id property from theLocal business documentation. Theurl property alone is a sufficient identifier to understand the local business.
• July 21: Added a set of new documentation about thesearch operators available in Google Search.
• July 13: Added a neweditorial guideline to theJobPosting documentation. Added a new optional property fordirectApply.

June 2021

• June 29: Significantly expanded ourredirects guide with the different kinds of redirects and their effects on Google Search.
• June 25: Added a page that detailshow different HTTP status codes, and network and DNS errors affect crawling and indexing.
• June 18: Based on feedback we've received from Search Central Product Experts and through the feedback tool, we've made several updates to our documentation:
  • Simplified theintroduction page to make it clearer what is robots.txt and what is its intended use.
  • Expanded the instructions aboutcreating andupdating robots.txt files.
  • Removed redundant sections from our documentation abouthow Google handles robots.txt.
  • Simplified sentences across all robots.txt documentation in English. This helps with localization.
  • Removed redundant documentation about how to build, test, and release structured data. Each feature has guidance about this, embedded directly into each guide (for example, theVideo structured data guide).
  • Improved the troubleshooting sections across all structured data feature guides (for example, theProduct structured data guide).
  • Added more beginner-friendly information about how toget started with structured data.
• June 15: Updated the timeline in thepage experience documentation. The page experience update is now slowly rolling out to all users. It will be complete by the end of August 2021.
• June 11:
  • Clarified theSitelinks search box documentation to explain the more standard and explicit form for specifying the search boxurlTemplate. Google will still accept the shorthand form as noted.
  • Added a new optional property to theDataset documentation:funder.
• June 10: Deprecated thecritic review documentation. We initially tested critic review markup with a group of site owners, and ultimately found that it wasn't useful for the ecosystem at scale. This deprecation doesn't affect any other features on Google Search that use review markup. You can leave the markup on your site so that search engines can better understand your web page.
• June 8: AddedBackOrder as an allowed value for theavailability property inProduct structured data.
• June 4: Addedgtin as an allowed identifier and clarified how to correctly useisbn forProduct structured data.
• June 3: Added support for theinLanguage property to theMath solvers documentation.
• June 1:
  • Modified theMath Solver developer documentation to add six newproblem types.
  • Updated theDuplexWeb user agent (inOverview of Google crawlers) to use a more recent system and Chrome version.

May 2021

• May 18:
  • Addeddocumentation forSeekToAction structured data, which is an alternative way to participate in the key moments feature.Clip structured data is now out of beta, and available to be used by any site.
  • Modified theJobPosting region availability list to include Austria and Denmark.
• May 6: Modified thepublisher logo requirements of AMPArticle structured data to more accurately reflect that we understand both raw URLs as well asImageObject markup.

April 2021

• April 19: Added new documentation for how toGet started with signed exchanges on Google Search. Learn more about thesigned exchange (SXG) announcement in our blog post.
• April 8: Added a new quality guideline to theDiscover documentation. Discover focuses on interest-based feeds (for example, articles and videos), and filters out content that might confuse readers (for example, Discover might not recommend job applications, petitions, forms, code repositories, or satirical content that's removed from its original context).
• April 7: Updated theVideo structured data documentation to state that thethumbnailUrl property must use one of thesupported Google Images file formats. Previously, the documentation didn't include WebP and SVG.
• April 1: Clarified thekey moments feature. Google Search tries to automatically detect the segments in your video and show key moments to users, without any effort on your part. Alternatively, there are two ways that you can manually tell Google which timestamp and label to use:Clip structured data andupdating the description of a YouTube video.Currently, Google is working with a wide range of providers to ensure that the use ofClip structured data works well at scale (our interest form is closed, as we have reached capacity). You're welcome toread the documentation and implementClip structured data in advance. Keep in mind that Google doesn't guarantee that your structured data will show up in search results, even if your page is marked up correctly according to the Rich Results Test.

March 2021

• March 29: Removed the interest form for theKey moments feature. The feature remains in development with a select group of providers, but the program is no longer accepting submissions.
• March 25: Added new structured data documentation forpractice problems andmath solvers.
• March 24:
  • Based on user feedback, we added examples for the propertyexperienceRequirements.monthsOfExperience in theJobPosting structured data documentation.
  • Added a new optional property to theDataset documentation:isAccessibleForFree.
• March 17: Updated thevideo best practices to more clearly emphasize the important guidelines. Removed duplicate content and updated the screenshots.
• March 16: Based on user feedback, we added more examples for themax-snippetrobotsmeta rule, and also specified for each tag what Google's default behavior is when the tags are omitted.
• March 11: Added new beta properties to theJobPosting structured data documentation. You may not see any appearance or effect in Google Search right away, as we are still developing how we are using this information.
  • educationRequirements.credentialCategory
  • experienceRequirements
  • experienceRequirements.monthsOfExperience
  • experienceInPlaceOfEducation
• March 8: Added theJP_E-CODE value as an accepted value for thePropertyValue property in theBook documentation.
• March 1: Removed instructions for submitting sitemaps on Google Sites from thesitemap guide. Google Sites doesn't create a sitemap for sites anymore.

February 2021

• February 8: Removed the page about joining the 3D and AR Early Adopters Program. Thefeature remains in development with a select group of providers, but the program is no longer accepting submissions.
• February 2: Removed the documentation for cross-language search results. This page was specific to an experimental approach with a small group of providers, and we're removing the page because it's obsolete.

January 2021

• January 28: Updated theEvent structured data documentation to state that theoffers.priceCurrency property requires an ISO 4217 currency code.
• January 22: Added documentation for theprice drop enhancement for product rich results.
• January 20: Updated theJob Training documentation to clarify that the appearance isn't available on Google Search right now.
• January 5: Updated thelist of recommended hreflang checker tools and removed those that don't work anymore.

2020 updates

December 2020

• December 4: Migrated the following guides from the Search Console Help Center (the content hasn't changed):
  • Large site owner's guide to managing your crawl budget
  • Web hosting services
  • Keep redacted information out of Google Search
  • Best practices for bloggers
  • Soft 404 errors

November 2020

• November 19: Migrated the Google Webmaster blogs to the newGoogle Search Central Blog.
• November 16: Added a new guide abouthow to join the Google Search Central office hours.
• November 12:
  • Added a newguideline for STEM-education related Q&A pages.
  • Added information about Googlebot's ability to crawl through HTTP/2 to theGooglebot help page.
• November 11: Published a redesign of the entire site. Reorganized the navigation to account for a migration of over 100 new pages from theSearch Console Help Center. The notable additions include:
  • Home page: Expanded the focus to include our entire audience, not just web developers.
  • Events landing page: Get an overview of upcoming events, including events that we host and attend as speakers.
  • What's new on Google Search Central: Check out the latest updates on Google Search, including changes to our blog, documentation, new Search events, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes.
  • Blog landing page: Added a new home page for our blog, previously known as the Google Webmaster Central blog. We plan to move archived posts soon.
  • Help landing page: Updated to include all of our help resources. Refreshed and simplified the Webmaster FAQ into 4 pages:
    • Crawling and indexing FAQ
    • Site position FAQ
    • Site appearance FAQ
    • Removing content from Google FAQ
  • Documentation landing page: Get an overview of the different learning paths in our documentation, including new Quickstart guides, beginner SEO guides, and advanced SEO guides.
  • Quickstart guides: A new set of guides for those that don't have much time to manage their site.
  • Beginner SEO guides: A new set of guides for beginners who want to learn about SEO. New pages include:Beginners guide to Search Console.
  • Advanced SEO guides: A new set of guides for advanced SEO topics. Most of the pages previously existed in theSearch Console Help Center. New pages include:
    • Advanced guide to Search Console
    • Overview of Search Appearance topics
    • Block access to your content
    • Overview of international and multilingual site topics
    • What is a site move
    • Move a site without URL changes
    • Move a site with URL changes
  To learn more about why we made these changes, read ourGoodbye Webmasters, Hello Google Search Central blog post.
• November 10: Updated the timeline information for theupcoming page experience ranking change. The changes are planned to go live in May 2021.

October 2020

• October 30:
  • Updated thelibrarySystemadditionalProperty.value property in theBook documentation, replacing thenational value with thegovernment value.
  • Updated the timeline for data-vocabulary.org support onintro to structured data andbreadcrumb page. As of January 29, 2021, data-vocabulary.org markup will no longer be eligible for Google rich result features. To be eligible after January 29, 2021, you need to replace data-vocabulary.org markup with schema.org markup. Learn more aboutsunsetting support for data-vocabulary.
• October 29: Added image ratio specifications to thehiringOrganization.logo property and theLogo is incorrect troubleshooting section.
• October 22: Changed the API requirement forpackage tracking documentation to state that we only accept POST requests.
• October 6: Added newexamples of Web Stories,best practices for creating Web Stories, andWeb Story content policy.

September 2020

• September 22: Added support forshippingDetails to theProduct structured data documentation.
• September 21: Added new episodes aboutIndexing (JavaScript) comments and Google's Honest Results Policy to theSearch Off the Record podcast page.
• September 18: Updated thefact check guidelines to include all relevant eligibility guidelines in one place (some guidelines were previously mentioned only in thePublisher Center article about fact-checked content). Added the following new guidelines:
  • You must have a corrections policy or have a mechanism for users to report errors.
  • Websites for political entities (such as campaigns, parties, or elected officials) aren't eligible for this feature.
  • You must clearly attribute the specific claim that you're assessing to a distinct origin (separate from your website), whether it's another website, public statement, social media, or other traceable source.
• September 15:
  • Added support forregionsAllowed in theVideo documentation. Added Microdata examples.
  • Updated theEmployerAggregateRating andReview snippet documentation to clarify thatbestRating andworstRating are recommended if you want to specify a different scale than the default 5-point system.

August 2020

• August 31: Updated theImage License documentation to state that the Licensable badge is now out of beta.
• August 27: Clarified merging of user-agent groups in the filerobots.txt documentation.
• August 26: Added new documentation about theHome activities rich result.
• August 21: Added section to theFix Search-related JavaScript problems guide to explain how to deal with non-HTTP network connections.
• August 10: Clarified that there are differentArticle requirements for AMP and non-AMP pages. Added an example of a non-AMP page withArticle structured data.
• August 5: Clarified in all relevant documentation that images referenced in structured data must be in one of the image file formats that aresupported by Google Images.
• August 3:
  • Added a new episode aboutIndexing (JavaScript) comments to theSearch Off the Record podcast page.
  • Added the optionaljobBenefits andindustry properties to theEstimated salary documentation, to match the existing requirements in the Rich Results Test.

July 2020

• July 24: Added new episodes to theSearch Off the Record podcast page.
• July 23: Clarified that Google Search is still working on way to displaymultiple fact checks for a single page, and that you may not see a rich result that features multiple fact checks in Google Search right away.
• July 21: Added a new optional property to theDataset documentation,measurementTechnique, and clarified that thename property should be unique for distinct datasets.
• July 20: Added thereviewCount property to theEmployerAggregateRating documentation, to match the existing requirements in the Rich Results Test. EitherreviewCount orratingCount is required.
• July 16:
  • Updated theBook documentation to explain how select book providers can provide a feed of data to Google with the structured data schema.
  • Clarified thatproduct rich results only support pages that are about a single product, not category pages or lists.
  • Based onLighthouse recommendations, specified what small font size means on theCommon mistakes page of the Mobile SEO guidelines.
• July 8: Clarified that Google Search understands when you specifymultiple items on a page with structured data, whether you nest the items or specify each item individually.
• July 1: Clarified in the AMP logo guidelines in theArticle documentation that the logo can be in any format supported by Google Images.

June 2020

• June 30: Added more examples to theCarousel documentation, and clarified the supported types and how to add them.
• June 23: Added a note to differentiate between guidelines applicable toArticle AMP logo guidelines and genericLogo guidelines.
• June 19: Added acontentUrl requirement to theImage License documentation to make it clear that the feature needs a specific image URL to apply the license to.
• June 16: Added browser-native lazy-loading to thelazy-loading guide.
• June 15: Addedmonitoring rich results video and more detailed information on using Search Console to monitor rich results to structured data reference pages (for exampleProduct,Recipe,FAQ).
• June 12: Added.webp, too, to the list of supported image file formats forLogo structured data.
• June 10: Added.svg to the list of supported image file formats forLogo structured data.
• June 8: Clarified that the recognized values for anapplicationCategory on aSoftware App are of typeText.
• June 4: Clarified in theSitelinks search box documentation that the search query parameter key can be any string permitted byRFC 3986; it doesn't have to beq.

May 2020

• May 28: Added new documentation that explainspage experience in Google Search results.
• May 27: Updated theJob training developer documentation to require theoccupationalCategory property, recommend thedescription property, and remove the requirement of theurl property. Also updated theeducationalProgramMode andfinancialAidEligible fields to have more precise value specifications.
• May 19: Added new guidance on how toenable Web Stories on Google.
• May 15: Added a note to theProduct structured data documentation about how to be eligible for the Google Shopping tab. Learn more about thedata and eligibility requirements.
• May 12: Extended the JavaScript SEO basics guide to includeguidance on JavaScript-generated links,History API instead of fragment URLs, andavoidingsoft 404 errors.
• May 11:
  • Added guidance onhow to reduce the Googlebot crawl rate.
  • Removed the following documentation that has been deprecated since June 2019:
    • Social Profile structured data: We now automatically discover social profiles to include in Google knowledge panels. If you're verified as an official representative, you can suggest a change directly. Learn more atUpdate your Google knowledge panel.
    • Corporate Contact structured data: We now automatically discover corporate contact information to include in Google knowledge panels. If you're verified as an official representative of a Google knowledge panel, you can suggest a change directly. Learn more atUpdate your Google knowledge panel.
    • Place Actions structured data: Instead, scheduling providers can use theMaps Booking API. Google Search continues to support existing partners that added Place Action structured data prior to June 17, 2019.
• May 7:
  • The Rich Result Test now supportsArticle structured data on AMP pages. Removed the following recommended fields from the documentation because we no longer need these signals:description,publisher.logo.height,publisher.logo.width.
  • Added avideo to theSubmit URLs guide that explains what a sitemap is, whether you need one or not, and how to submit a sitemap and track its status using Search Console.
  • Removed the page about joining the Mini-apps Early Adopters Program. The program is no longer accepting submissions.
• May 6: Added information about how totest robots.txt markup.
• May 5:
  • Updated theJob posting content policies to have a clear structure and language that describes what Google will enforce. Added the following new policies:
    • Irrelevant content
    • Incomplete content
    • We don't allow job postings on behalf of an organization or company without authorization.
    • Advertisements disguised as a job posting
  • UpdatedSpecialAnnouncement structured data to include information onhow to use Search Console to troubleshoot markup and analyze the rich result performance.
  • Podcasts on Google information has migrated to the newPodcasts Manager help center. Visit the help center to learn how to get your podcast on Google.
• May 1: Updated theIndexing API documentation to include the<meta name="robots" content="noindex" /> tag as an option for removing a URL.

April 2020

• April 30:
  • Added a note to explain that it isn't reliable to usecached links for debugging purposes. Instead, use theURL Inspection Tool because it has the a most up-to-date version of your page. The note was added to thegeneral debugging guide,JavaScript debugging guide, and thestructured data debugging guide.
  • Updated theBreadcrumb structured data documentation to have some explanatory text on how breadcrumbs relate to URL paths.
• April 27: Updated theJob training structured data documentation to require 2-letter country codes for provider addresses.
• April 23: Added missing meta description issue to the list of error messages in themobile-first indexing best practices.
• April 22: Updated thePaywalled content structured data documentation to include a list of supported types.
• April 20: AddedCOVID-19 resources for sites from Google Search andBest practices for education sites
• April 16:
  • Added anew example and optional properties to support COVID-19 announcements about government benefits:
    • governmentBenefitsInfo
    • governmentBenefitsInfo.audience
    • governmentBenefitsInfo.audience.name
    • governmentBenefitsInfo.name
    • governmentBenefitsInfo.provider
    • governmentBenefitsInfo.provider.name
    • governmentBenefitsInfo.serviceType
    • governmentBenefitsInfo.url
  • Updated theJobPosting structured data documentation to highlight markup for work from home jobs. Added a screenshot of the feature in Google Search, a code example, and a banner at the top of the documentation.
• April 14: Added optional properties to theEvent structured data documentation:organizer,organizer.name,organizer.url.
• April 10: Updated theCOVID-19 announcements documentation. The Rich Results Test now supportsSpecialAnnouncements.
• April 8:
  • Added a note toCOVID-19 announcements documentation to clarify that businesses should useLocalBusiness markup orGoogle My Business to update store hours and post updates.
  • Added a new case study that showcases howSaramin increased organic Search traffic 2x by investing in SEO.
• April 7: Updated theEvent structured data documentation to state that the timezone UTC/GMT offset is required for online events, since there is no location information that Google can use to understand when the event starts.
• April 3:
  • Removed the caution note about the Structured Data Testing Tool from theCOVID-19 announcements documentation. The Structured Data Testing Tool now supportsannouncementLocation. Added a new screenshot of an announcement in Search results. Added a new example that shows a page with multiple announcements, and added Microdata examples.
  • Added new guidance on how toadd structured data with JavaScript.
• April 2: Added new guidance on how tosubmit COVID-19 announcements in Search Console. Added information onhow to sign up for the technical support group. At first, we'll be accepting only national government domains and US state level agencies. For more information about the group,read our announcement.

March 2020

• March 31: Added new guidance for how toadd structured data to COVID-19 announcements. This feature is still under development, and you may see changes in requirements, guidelines, and how the feature appears in Google Search.
• March 26: Added new guidance for how topause your online business.
• March 24:
  • In theEstimated Salary documentation, replaced theunitText property with theduration property. Starting March 24, 2020, we updated the documentation to requireduration instead ofunitText. While we continue to supportunitText, we requireduration moving forward. We recommend that you switch over to usingduration, if possible.
  • Updated theGoogle Podcasts brand assets to include localized Google Podcasts badges in 49 languages.
• March 23: Added a new recommended field to thePackage tracking developer documentation:CanReschedule.
• March 20:
  • Added the Latest updates page (this page), which includes the major updates made to the Google Search developer documentation in March 2020.
  • Added a new recommendation to theJavaScript best practices about using long-lived caching to avoid caching issues with Googlebot. Added a new step about using content fingerprinting to theJavaScript troubleshooting documentation.
  • Added a note to theEvent structured data documentation about the new optional properties that were added on March 16-17, 2020. The Rich Results Test now supports the new properties.
• March 17:
  • Added optional properties to theEvent structured data documentation:eventAttendanceMode,VirtualLocation type forlocation,location.url for online events. For more information about this change, check out ourblog post.
  • Addedgeneral troubleshooting info to the Sitelinks search box documentation. Clarified that while Google Search may automatically display a search box scoped to your website, it's still helpful to explicitly provide information by addingWebSite structured data, which can help Google better understand your site.
  • In theJob training developer documentation, removed thehasCredential property from the list of recommended properties forEducationalOccupationalProgram. This is becausehasCredential is only recommended for theOrganization type on schema.org, notEducationalOccupationalProgram.
• March 16: Added optional properties to theEvent structured data documentation:eventStatus andpreviousStartDate. For more information about this change, check out ourblog post.
• March 5:
  • In theProduct structured data documentation, clarified that one of the following properties is required:review,aggregateRating,offers. Changed the expected type forbrand to beBrand orOrganization (Thing is still accepted).
  • Added new recommended fields to thePackage tracking developer documentation:TimestampEvent andLocationEvent.
• March 3: Addedhostload issues to the list of error messages in themobile-first indexing best practices.