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Search Off the Record takes you behind the scenes of Google Search and its inner workings! In each episode, the folks from the Search Relations team will give you background info on the decision-making behind launches, feature prioritization in Search Console, and the projects Google Search teams are working on. They will share fun stories from the many conferences they attend as well as from their day-to-day working life at Google. They will also dive into the currently trending conversations in the SEO community at large. Have a listen!


Oct 1, 2026

Sitemaps have been a core element of web development and search engine optimization for two decades, yet Search Console warnings like "Couldn't fetch" continue to generate concern among site owners. Are XML sitemaps still necessary with modern search crawlers, or can search engines and AI bots figure out site structure...



Jul 30, 2026

Is your website’s internal search feature secretly acting as an open invitation for crawling lots and lots? In this episode of Search off the Record, Martin Splitt and John Mueller pull back the curtain on how internal search results pages can turn into "infinite crawl spaces" that trap Googlebot, waste your...