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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!

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  2. 2026
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How Browsers Really Parse HTML (and What That Means for SEO) - transcript

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Feb 26, 2026

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How Browsers Really Parse HTML (and What That Means for SEO)

Feb 26, 2026

Martin and Gary unpack how HTML parsing really works, why the HTML standard is so lenient, and how messy markup can silently break key SEO signals like hreflang and rel=canonical. They revisit validators and cross‑browser hacks from the Netscape/IE days, and discuss whether semantic HTML and strict validity truly...

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

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Feb 12, 2026

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Do You Still Need a Website in 2026?

Feb 12, 2026

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,...

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Crawling Challenges: What the 2025 Year-End Report Tells Us - Transcript

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Feb 3, 2026

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