Japanese Google Search Office Hours（ #Google検索オフィスアワー 2025 年 12 月 18 日）

special
Tokyo.
What is
discussion?
Yeah.
Um,
so they are completely different. They
are under the same umbrella, but they
are completely different. With robots
txt, you tell crawlers, not just Google,
but crawlers in general, that you don't
want a resource, a URL be crawled. And
then with no index, you would tell that
you don't want that URL be included in
the index in a database. But if you are
using robots txt
then you can never tell
um that there was a no index on the page
because you are not allowed to crawl the
URL. So how would you know because no
index can only go either in the page in
form of a metatag for example or an HTTP
header and then robots txt that's a file
that we consult before actually going to
the URL. So you cannot use them
interchangeably.
If you want to control crawling then you
you uh use robots txt. If you want to
crawl uh if you want to control um how
your pages show up in search or whether
they show up in search then use no
index.
Okay.
Why is it always me? [laughter]
Um, so when we when I selected this
question, I actually wanted to put their
uh QR code because uh my teammate uh
Daniel uh Weisberg um he has a
I think a blog post or a help
documentation about how to check uh
whether a ranking drop is caused by an
al algorithm update or not. So I would
go
there first. um catch me afterwards if
you are here and then I will give you
the URL. Um but you can also search for
that on your favorite search engine.
Um
how to plan improvements? Uh I think the
important thing
that you have to keep in mind is that
you need the improvements across the
whole site
not just individual pages. So you have
to take a look at the whole site and
look at where can you improve
um and go from there. But there's no
easy way to to fix these things.
Yeah. Can you hear me?
Okay. Um, direction of search console.
Well, as I said in my talk, we are
constantly improving and adding features
in search console. Um and uh I guess the
latest additions uh in the in the past
uh few uh years you've seen them. Um we
added there was uh a feature called uh
search insights that was basically
ported into search console. Um now I
think uh we added in the past couple of
months we added something called
achievements uh that was also very
popular. Um so yeah we are all the time
improving and I don't know as we say AI
is everything so maybe we can expect
something uh
but yeah as you may well know we are all
the time also experimenting so uh there
might be features that some of you will
get uh in the near future um but there
are things uh happening. Yes.
Thank you
question.
Good. So um I have a question about uh
Google search and Gemini. So you said uh
Gemini is not search and you don't know
anything about the crawlers but at the
same time we don't need go and also when
I look at server logs the Gemini robot
is shown as a part of Google bot. So
there's like a little bit of like a
mixed signals thing going on there. So,
how are you feeling? Like how are you
working with the Google search team and
the Gemini team? Do you see yourselves
working together more in the future? Can
you tell us more about that?
[laughter]
I I'll answer some part of question.
Gemini.
Fore
speech.
Why did Yes, I like this question.
[laughter]
Um,
so I I I think when you're optimizing
for something something AI,
then
technically you want to um keep in mind
the technology stack that's under the AI
system that you are optimizing for. In
case of Google like AI overviews, AI AI
mode that's just the old
plain old search indexing, search
crawler, whatever. In case of Gemini, it
would be slightly different but largely
the the the same. Um it has to have
additional things because well it is
optimized for chat interfaces not for um
traditional search displays.
Um so it depends on what AI system you
are going for. I think um for search I I
truly believe you don't have to do
anything else. Um for Gemini there might
be something I don't know but I believe
not like there's no um extra structure
data for example that I can think of
that might do better with Gemini or CHP
or anything else. Um, and then [snorts]
the relationship between AI and SEO and
the future holds for SEO. That's just
what we talked about uh previously. So,
I'm not going to go in into that.
Uh, let me just add that um in search
console we are showing
uh clicks, impressions and everything
also from AI features. So you can pretty
much see what happens and whether you
are cited by AI or not. It's not
currently apparent but your total
traffic should be uh covered.
Huh?
Search.
Oh,
speech speech.
Thank you very much for the question. Um
it's not the first time that we get this
request uh putting it mildly and um
uh I know that it is important for the
ecosystem to understand and
I think someone mentioned that uh
knowledge and understanding is power and
um that makes total sense. Um, currently
we're not showing this because of many
internal reasons and um, hopefully we
will someday. I don't know. Um,
but there's not not too much I can share
about that at at this point. Um,
yeah, sorry. But but it is it is a valid
request and a valid question and we know
about it. Um and uh I guess we are
waiting for the time to be right.
Don't don't look at me. I don't know.
>> I don't know.
>> I think this is Omry question.
>> Yes. So, um, so if you're a content
creator, one of the things you could do
is, uh, use Google Trends to, um, so
hopefully you already have some kind of
a notion as to the types of content that
[snorts] you're focused on your own
site. And so, you could put in some of
these um, terms and topics into Google
Trends, and you can see how they are
trending over time. If you set the
region to the country or the region that
your audience um is focused on, that
your site is focused on. Let's say that
you're creating content for Japan. So
set uh you know Google Trends to show
you uh the search interest for Japan and
just compare compare those terms,
compare those topics, see first of all
which ones are more popular, what is
your audience, uh what do they care
about?
uh and uh this uh kind of gives you a
sense into what are the things you
should be focusing on. Another really
good um system that works for a lot of
people is to look into questions. So
specific questions. So one of the things
you could do on Google Trends is you can
actually add questions um you know who,
why, what, uh when and so on to that in
relation to those topics and you can see
what are the top questions that are that
are actually trending. What are the what
are people asking in relation to the
topics that your content covers and
maybe you'll find some interesting
questions. Um, so one of the one of the
ways is to put it just as as a
comparison on the explore page. The
other way is to look at their related
queries related queries and again look
for those questions. Um, and this will
give you a lot of great ideas for the
types of content that you may want um to
create based on the things that your
audience is is asking.
I just want to add uh a couple of things
to what Omry said uh which are more
related to search console because if
you're thinking about your readers
basically these are people who are
actually coming to your website they
might be coming through Google search
and if you look at um the
uh performance report in Google s in in
search console you will see what are the
top queries that drive traffic to your
site and from that you can probably
deduce maybe what their interests are or
maybe for some queries you're not um
very high up and you would want to
improve it because you think these
should be things that trigger your
website more and they're not triggering
right now. Um and um yeah, so I think
the performance report would be also a
good tool for you to use.
Five question
is not that
I use
interaction.
Google
So the wa so the first
mention of uh SEO is dead that I know of
is from 1998.
So in 1998, Google was one year old or
not even and SEO was already or already
dead because user behavior was changing
back in 1998.
in 2001 or 2002ish
um we realized maybe 2003 I don't
remember um we realized that we need
Google images the image search engine
because people started searching like
crazy
um for the dress that Jennifer Lopez was
wearing at a gala
in 2007 7. No, in 2005,
we realized based on some news event
that we need Google News
and then because people started
searching more and more for Google News.
In 2007, we added universal results
and so on, search kept changing because
users were changing. But SEO never died.
SEO just changed with the search engines
and with the users. Now what we are
seeing is that
this will sound funny or henna but
people are lazier.
They want information to be given to
them.
Um and that is important for any
business. It's important for a search
business as well.
And then you have to figure out well we
have to figure out how we balance
um the ecosystem and users needs.
But if you want to blame someone for
this, you can blame Gen Z because those
are those that's the segment of people
um who are driving these kind of changes
because they are coming on the market um
and um they
require changes. Um and just so you
know, I'm not talking
uh out of my stomach. Um there's a study
on uh thinkwithgoogle.com
um where you can read about this how
Jenz is uh uh changing how search and uh
interactions work on the internet. So if
you need an inspiration for how users
are behaving and why things are changing
then thinkwithgoogle.com
is probably the best source that I can
recommend um because they do publish
interesting insights
um I think from the ads side not from
the our engineering side for or from
organic side um but nonetheless
they are doing the research and
publishing it. So check it out there.
>> Thank you.
>> I can add maybe something here is AI is
is changing everything, right? So you
see AI being used for content creation
and then on search you see how AI makes
it easier to find content and where we
are still catching up is using AI in the
in the tools that we offer such as
search console and trends to give you
better insights as a content creator on
the things that your audience cares
about and their the patterns that
they're using when they're using these
AI surfaces. So, we're still not there,
but we're definitely um thinking about
it and looking into introducing these
types of AI based insights. We've
already started that in search console.
Um but using these AIs to to also bring
higher quality data and insights to
content creators through the tools that
we offer. So, look for that hopefully
soon.
Okay.
Google
Google.
content.
How to make
I'm very curious how I selected these
questions. [laughter]
Uh how to improve index rates? Um well,
you need to publish content that um
users are going to find useful help more
helpful slash useful. Um that typically
means that it's of high quality. Um that
you put some expertise in writing the
thing or creating the thing if it's an
image or video. Um
generally speaking if you are publishing
useful content um content that is useful
some for some users then the index rates
are going up. Um if um you are
publishing stuff that people are
generally not interested in that's not
useful for people um then index rates
are going down. Um
and then focus on quality. um try to
ensure that the content that you are
producing is actually of high quality.
How we define that we have plenty of
documentation on that particular thing.
So I would just check out our docs.
>> Just a small addition here. Um, I know
it might sound a bit old-fashioned, but
there are site maps,
>> and if you make it easy for us to find
your content, it doesn't give you any um
any u uh promises, of course, but at
least from a technical perspective, make
sure that we know where your content is
and um make sure that that doesn't come
in the way
>> and that you can that we can crawl it.
>> Yeah.
>> Um nowadays,
>> don't block it. Don't block it.
>> Yeah, we are laughing at this, but
nowadays uh like for example, random
CDNs might decide to randomly block um
uh traffic. Um so you have yet another
thing to look out for. Um go to your CDN
or firewall and check whether there are
uh rules that were put there, not by you
even. Um so yeah, it's getting tricky on
the internet.
My question is forly. Sorry, Gary.
[laughter]
So, I'd like to understand how Google
Trends uh defines its topics.
When I search for Apple, Google Trends
shows a few suggestions. One is Apple
the technology company and another is
Apple the fruit. So far so good. But uh
two other suggestions uh with the Apple
logo also appear and they are just label
topic. What exactly are those? And
another example I was previously labeled
SEO. I'm proud of that. But you know uh
now I'm just I'm just labeled just
topic. So my understanding that uh
Google trends uh gets it topic
information from the knowledge uh
knowledge graph uh treating topics as uh
entities. So how does Google trends
decide on these topics?
Thank you for the question. It's a great
question. So um so yes, so on Google
Trends you can search for either queries
or topics like you mentioned. Um and the
topics do indeed come from the knowledge
graph. So um knowledge graph is
something that we maintain at Google.
It's not just part of Google trends.
It's u all across Google and it's
something that evolves over time. So
knowledge graph is basically a
collection of entities that are mapped
to each other that represent um
something about the structure of real
world entities. So it could be people,
companies, events, you know, the types
of things that maybe you would see a
Wikipedia article on. So most of
Wikipedia articles also have knowledge
graph entities for example. Uh and uh
you're right. So sometimes there are a
lot of entities or topics uh that have
very similar names uh Apple the fruit
versus Apple the company. And so um what
we're trying to do is uh try to
understand the topic based on the
context of the queries that uh people
put into search. So if user goes into
search and they just type in apple
enter, we don't have a lot of context.
Google search doesn't have a lot of
context. So it tries its best to
understand, you know, what type of
result to give you and maybe it's
personalized. Maybe it's based on
something that Google already knows
about you as a user. On Google Trends,
we aggregate this across all of the
users. So maybe some users are
interested in technology, other users
are interested in farming or in fruit or
whatever.
um if the question that the user types
in onto uh Google search is is more um
has more meaning for example they ask
about the Apple stock value then it's
more clear that they're talking about
Apple the company so this is basically
where the uh association between the
query and the topic comes from so at at
the moment that the user types in their
queries Google search does its best to
understand the meaning and this is the
you know that meaning gets logged as
part of the search logs and this is
basically what we're processing and and
also serving as part of uh Google trends
and uh of course this changes over time
so sometimes when you're looking for the
search interest of topics you may see
these little you know jumps like
something drops to zero or drops you
know from zero to something else it it
means that there was something in the
back and of Google of the association
between queries and topics that has
changed. U it happens we don't have a
lot of control over that. Um if that
happens then maybe there's another topic
that kind of took over as a better
representation of the meaning of that
query. Um, in that case, it would be
better uh just to look at the just the
query instead of the topic for a more
kind of stable uh history of search uh
interest. Uh or maybe just add different
variations of topics to to try and see
uh where where the search interest has
transitioned into. Uh so no simple
answer, but it's still a very useful uh
capability. Um, and yeah, I hope you do
find it useful.
>> I have one more question. So, uh,
>> I
>> So, there are there's quite a long line.
So,
>> sorry.
Okay.
So I actually fixed this during uh um
during COVID. It was a COVID project. Um
historically we haven't handled it well.
So basically if you wrote Furyana then
we would mess it up pretty bad uh
internally. Uh now it should work much
better. Um it's it's still a hack on in
our system but it at least works. Um and
uh if it doesn't then send lots of
toucan after me and then I will come
back and then I fix it.
Live question
[laughter]
index.
Googleot.
You are correct that there's a limit.
Um, every technical system has a limit.
So, our index also has to have a limit.
Um, and you are correct to say that or
assume that our index is not infinite.
Um,
absolutely correct. Um but that doesn't
mean that it's not dynamic.
Meaning that pages from the index come
and go. Um if you publish something of
higher quality um than your competitor,
then the competitor might fall out of
the index and then you come in in the
index. Um the
I I I I think at one point we lost we
SEOs lost the
not the game but
we
started creating so much content on the
internet that it made the competition
extremely high
in every single niche that I can think
of. meaning that it's much much much
harder to get that click from Bing, from
Google, from uh any other search engine
that you can think of because the
competition is so high so high.
Um
what you can do about it? Well, go back
to what what it means to be a marketer.
What to be to me like the marketing side
of SEO. Um, it means that you convince
people to come to your site. How do you
do that?
There's lots of marketing uh tricks that
you can do. You can um post on social
media. You can do uh guerilla ads like
something that catches people's eyes and
then they come to the site. But you have
to convince people to come to your site.
As soon as people come to the site on
their own, it's extremely likely that
Google is also going to like your site
more.
>> Yeah, I see. Thank you.
>> Yeah, just adding to that, um,
search console is always a good place to
go and see what's going on, right?
Whether you are in the index or you're
not in the index. um you know whether we
found even your pages, maybe we don't
know about this new site. Uh where
should we know about it? Maybe uh so all
this information is important. Um and
you know each clue that you get from
from any type of uh tool will help you u
improve.
>> Yes. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
No. [laughter]
No. All out of the job. [laughter]
>> Maybe I'm fired at that.
question.
Okay. Uh I will ask in English. Uh so
about the search console uh is there a
way to make discovery
um debugable on search console like see
why say why your page is up in it or why
it doesn't show at all.
Um well we we try to provide as much
information that we can uh but in order
to be fair to everybody we cannot give
you answers right. Um we just represent
whatever is in the system. Uh we don't
make decisions. Um and um so yeah you
can use our tools. You can understand
what's happening basically by looking at
where your traffic is coming from. If
pages are not showing anymore, maybe
there is a crawling problem. We have a
lot of reports that help you with that.
Maybe uh if you intended your um content
to be on some special place in in search
and you added some structured data and
it's not being processed correctly, we
have reports for that. So
we try to be as transparent as possible
to show site owners, you know, what is
Google seeing and how it's processing
your your content. Um, but again, we
don't really, we as search console don't
control, you know, what goes in the
index and what doesn't go in the index.
It's back to Gary, you know, make
really, really high quality content.
Make sure that it's discoverable, that
it's accessible. Um, make sure your
website is
um is a good website, doesn't annoy
users. Uh, and uh um and yeah, then I
guess then you go into the competition
with everybody else. [laughter]
Thank you.
for
question.
Hi. Cont.
HTML.
or
>> also just to say it very clearly,
structure data has no influence on
ranking.
Next question.
Last question maybe.
Do you know?
>> [laughter]
>> That's good.
How about we take Sujisan's questions if
Tsujisan promises that he's going to be
quick? [laughter]
[laughter]
>> [laughter]
>> I regret my decision. [laughter]
Um
I mean the situation is uh pretty much
the same uh as before. I think we
need to see that there was some effort
in um at least making sure that the
translation quality is at least
understandable.
um like now that I was uh in um in China
and in Hong Kong and um I was more
immersed with with with Chinese language
for example, I see so many
really bad translations. Um, and I don't
know, and I'm sorry, I'm not trying to
offend, but like the English translation
for some for some food was um,
duck liver excrement or something like
that, which is
no, like I know that it was duck liver
and it was with some vegetable, but then
the vegetable was mistransated
and that was automatic translation.
How is that useful for me as a user? It
is not. So I stand by that uh what of
what I said two years ago is that
someone needs to check the AI
translation
and we're done.
It might be as simple as doing the
reverse translation afterwards, just
checking that what the translation did
is coming back as the same thing and not
just messed it up. But that often also
changes the meaning
because there are um nuances in in
languages like for example here if I say
um I don't know like uh Anasan goes
first and then you translate it to
Japanese and then back to English it's
very likely that it's going to lose the
meaning because
>> but at least you know there's no
extrament in that.
>> Yes.
>> Okay.
discussion.
[applause]
Hi
Fore
speech.
Byebye.