google-official-seo-guide

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SKILL.md (first lines)

# Google Official SEO Guide

## When to Use This Skill
This skill should be triggered when users ask about:

### SEO & Search Optimization
- Improving website ranking in Google Search
- Implementing SEO best practices
- Optimizing meta tags, titles, and descriptions
- Fixing crawling or indexing issues
- Understanding how Google Search works

### Structured Data & Rich Results
- Adding VideoObject, BroadcastEvent, or Clip structured data
- Implementing schema.org markup for rich results
- Creating sitemaps and robots.txt files
- Setting up breadcrumb navigation
- Configuring hreflang for multi-language sites

### Technical SEO
- Mobile-first indexing optimization
- JavaScript SEO and rendering issues
- Managing duplicate content with canonical tags
- Configuring robots meta tags
- URL structure and internal linking

### Search Console & Monitoring
- Using Google Search Console reports
- Debugging search visibility issues
- Monitoring crawl errors and indexing status
- Analyzing search performance metrics

### Content & Links
- Writing effective anchor text
- Internal and external linking strategies
- Avoiding spam policies violations
- Managing site migrations and redirects

## Key Concepts

### The Three Stages of Google Search
1. Crawling: Googlebot discovers and fetches pages from the web
2. Indexing: Google analyzes page content and stores it in the index
3. Serving: Google returns relevant results for user queries

### Important SEO Principles
- Mobile-First Indexing: Google primarily uses the mobile version of content for indexing and ranking
- Canonical URLs: Specify the preferred version of duplicate or similar pages
- Structured Data: Use schema.org markup to help Google understand your content
- Search Essentials: Technical, content, and spam requirements for Google Search eligibility

### Common Structured Data Types
- VideoObject: For video content and features
- BroadcastEvent: For livestream videos (LIVE badge)
- Clip: For video key moments/timestamps
- SeekToAction: For auto-detected key moments in videos

## Quick Reference

### Example 1: Basic VideoObject Structured Data
`json
{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "VideoObject", "name": "Video title", "description": "Video description", "thumbnailUrl": [ "https://example.com/photos/1x1/photo.jpg", "https://example.com/photos/4x3/photo.jpg", "https://example.com/photos/16x9/photo.jpg" ], "uploadDate": "2024-03-31T08:00:00+08:00", "duration": "PT1M54S", "contentUrl": "https://example.com/video.mp4", "embedUrl": "https://example.com/embed/123" }
`
Use this for: Adding basic video metadata to help Google understand and display your videos in search results.

### Example 2: LIVE Badge with BroadcastEvent
`json
{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "VideoObject", "name": "Livestream title", "uploadDate": "2024-10-27T14:00:00+00:00", "publication": { "@type": "BroadcastEvent", "isLiveBroadcast": true, "startDate": "2024-10-27T14:00:00+00:00", "endDate": "2024-10-27T14:37:14+00:00" } }
`
Use this for: Enabling the LIVE badge on livestream videos in Google Search results.

### Example 3: Video Key Moments with Clip
`json
{ "@context": "https://schema.org", "@type": "VideoObject", "name": "Cat video", "hasPart": [ { "@type": "Clip", "name": "Cat jumps", "startOffset": 30, "endOffset": 45, "url": "https://example.com/video?t=30" }, { "@type": "Clip", "name": "Cat misses the fence", "startOffset": 111, "endOffset": 150, "url": "https://example.com/video?t=111" } ] }
`
Use this for: Manually specifying important timestamps/chapters in your video for the key moments feature.

### Example 5: Crawlable Links
`html
<!-- Recommended: Google can crawl these --> <a href="https://example.com">Link text</a> <a href="/products/category/shoes">Link text</a> <a href="./products/category/shoes">Link text</a> <!-- Not recommended: May not be crawled --> <a routerLink="products/category">Link text</a> <a onclick="goto('https://example.com')">Link text</a> <span href="https://example.com">Link text</span>
`
Use this for: Ensuring your links are discoverable and crawlable by Googlebot.

### Example 7: robots meta tags
`html
<!-- Don't index this page --> <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> <!-- Don't follow links on this page --> <meta name="robots" content="nofollow"> <!-- Don't index and don't follow --> <meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow"> <!-- Don't show snippet in search results --> <meta name="robots" content="nosnippet">
`
Use this for: Controlling how Google crawls and indexes specific pages.

## Working with This Skill

### For Beginners
Start with fundamentals to understand:
- How Google Search works (crawling → indexing → serving)
- Basic SEO principles
- Search Essentials requirements

### For Web Developers
Priority reading:
1. fundamentals: Understand the technical foundation
2. crawling: Optimize Googlebot access and crawl efficiency
3. indexing: Implement proper meta tags and redirects
4. specialty: Add structured data for rich features

## Common Pitfalls to Avoid

### Spam Policy Violations
- ❌ Keyword stuffing in content or meta tags
- ❌ Hidden text or links
- ❌ Buying/selling links for ranking
- ❌ Cloaking (showing different content to Google vs users)

### Mobile-First Indexing Issues
- ❌ Different content on mobile vs desktop
- ❌ Blocking resources on mobile
- ❌ Missing structured data on mobile

### Structured Data Mistakes
- ❌ Using unsupported formats or properties

From Gunesh22/tgf-excel-version-2, Apache-2.0.

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