Bad office hours are back, baby!

Your favorite ever-patient Search Console advocates are back after a 3-month hiatus to answer your burning questions in April 2024's Google Search Office Hours. Their answers are measured and poised– full of infuriating nuance and tact. Here’s your palate cleanser for that.

Q: Did my rankings drop because Google found out I have two websites?

A: For real? You think we just figured that out? Girl. No.

Q: How do I tell Google not to crawl and index only paginated search results on my site? Should I use "follow, noindex"?

A: Yes because with 7 billion new pages on the internet everyday, your /page-2 that sometimes exists is our top priority.

Q: Should I use #color or ?color in the URL for a T-shirt product with different colors in a drop-down?

A: You should use #readtheexistingdocumentation

Q: Does it matter if one uses underscores or hyphens to separate keywords in the URL?

A: It matters if you read_the_documentation.

Q: If my site is down (503 status code) 4 times a week, for 10-15 mins, is that a concern for SEO?

A: “This is documented extensively on Search Central. Fortunately for you, 10-15 minutes every now and then is not "extended" by any means, so you should be fine…” if you learn to check the documentation.

Q: I changed the Facebook page URL to a new one. What do I need to do next?

A: Sir, this is a Wendy’s.

Q: Google is indexing URLs from my website which seem to have been created by a bot in Chinese.

A: 50rrY 8r0 Y0UV3 833N PWN3D 7H3r35 D0CUM3N74710N F0r 7H47

Sorry and you’re welcome.