Search Off the Record

Latest Episodes:

Do You Still Need a Website in 2026? (Transcript) Feb 12, 2026

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Do You Still Need a Website in 2026? Feb 12, 2026

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In this episode of Search Off the Record, Martin and Gary from the Google Search Relations team tackle a deceptively simple question: do you still need a website in 2026? Starting from the recurring industry claim that "the web is dead," they explore how the web has evolved through the rise of apps, AI chatbots, and social platforms, and why the answer almost always ends up being "it depends." Tune in for an engaging discussion on how websites remain relevant and what it means for content creation and discovery.

Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr103-transcript

Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt

Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral

Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

#SOTRpodcast #SEO #GoogleSearch

Speakers: Martin Splitt, Gary Illyes

Crawling Challenges: What the 2025 Year-End Report Tells Us - Transcript Feb 03, 2026

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Crawling Challenges: What the 2025 Year-End Report Tells Us. Feb 03, 2026

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Join Martin and Gary as they dive into Search Off the Record's Episode 103, unpacking the 2025 Year-End report on crawling issues. Discover fascinating insights on faceted navigation, action parameters, irrelevant parameters and more, highlighting the biggest challenges faced by web crawlers last year. With humor and expert analysis, this episode reveals critical takeaways for webmasters and SEO professionals. Don't miss valuable tips to enhance your site's crawl efficiency!

Resources:

URL structure best practices for Google Search → https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/url-structure

Crawling December: Faceted navigation →

https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2024/12/crawling-december-faceted-nav

Xkcd (programmer humor) →

https://xkcd.com/327/

SOTR102_transcript.pdf Jan 08, 2026

Show notes

https://search-off-the-record.libsyn.com/sotr102_transcriptpdf

SEO, AIO, GEO, your site, & third-party support to optimize for LLMs Jan 08, 2026

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In this episode, John Mueller and Danny Sullivan continue their conversation about the changing landscape of Search. They discuss the practicalities of hiring an SEO professional in the age of AI: Do you really need one? How do you evaluate them? Danny also shares his thoughts on third-party SEO tools, "domain scores," and why creators shouldn't rush to break their content into "bite-sized chunks" just to please Large Language Models (LLMs).

Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral

Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

#SOTRpodcast #SEO #GoogleSearch

Thoughts on SEO & SEO for AI, part 1 Dec 17, 2025

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In this episode, John Mueller and Danny Sullivan talk about SEO and the new kids on the block: AIO, GEO and others. Danny shares how these things interact with each other and what he thinks website owners should look for in their content creation and how Google's principles align with the way people use AI and search engines to navigate the web.

Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt

Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral

Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

How Search Off the Record tackles SEO and web development Oct 30, 2025

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Celebrate the 100th episode of Search Off the Record with Martin, Lizzi, Cherry, John and Gary as they revisit memorable moments, touching on a bunch of topics. This special episode touches on Google's mobile-first indexing, the intricacies of the Caffeine indexing system, and a deep dive into JavaScript scoping – and hoisting. You'll hear again about optimizing documentation traffic and the delightful world of Google Doodles. Discover key insights that impact your SEO strategies and web development practices.

Resources:

Episode transcript → https://goo.gle/sotr100-transcript

Chapters: 0:00 - Welcome and 100th Episode Intro 2:21 - Lizzi's favorite: SEO starter guide readings 3:01 - Gary on Mobile-First Indexing Importance 3:39 - Revamping the SEO starter guide 5:13 - Meta tags and Google's indexing system 9:11 - Cherry's use of podcasts for work 12:09 - Deep dive into caffeine indexing 13:59 - The mechanics of data conversion in caffeine 16:12 - John's favorite: The magic of Google Doodles 23:30 - JavaScript ccoping and hoisting 25:47 - Optimizing documentation traffic 29:29 - Conclusion: 100 Episodes of Search Off the Record

Listen to more Search Off the Record → https://goo.gle/sotr-yt Subscribe to Google Search Channel → https://goo.gle/SearchCentral

Search Off the Record is a podcast series that takes you behind the scenes of Google Search with the Search Relations team.

#SOTRpodcast #SEO

Speaker: Martin Splitt, John Mueller, Cherry Sireetorn Prommawin Products Mentioned: Search Console

SOTR100_transcript.pdf Oct 30, 2025

Show notes

https://search-off-the-record.libsyn.com/sotr100_transcriptpdf

SOTR099_transcript.pdf Sep 04, 2025

Show notes

https://search-off-the-record.libsyn.com/sotr099_transcriptpdf