Google I/O is our yearly developer conference where we have the pleasure of announcing some exciting new Search-related features and capabilities. A good place to start is Google Search: State of the Union, which explains how to take advantage of the latest capabilities in Google Search:

We also gave more details on how JavaScript and Google Search work together and what you can do to make sure your JavaScript site performs well in Search.

Try out new features today

Here are some of the new features, codelabs, and documentation that you can try out today:

• Googlebot now runs the latest Chromium rendering engine: This means Googebot now supports new features, like ES6, IntersectionObserver for lazy-loading, and Web Components v1 APIs. Googlebot will regularly update it's rendering engine. Learn more about the update in our Google Search and JavaScript talk, blog post, and updated our guidance on how to fix JavaScript issues for Google Search.
• How-to & FAQ launched on Google Search and the Assistant: You can get started today by following the developer documentation: How-to and FAQ. We also launched supporting Search Console reports. Learn more about How-to and FAQ in our structured data talk.
• Find and listen to podcasts in Search: Last week, we launched the ability to listen to podcasts directly on Google Search when you search for a certain show. In the coming months, we'll start surfacing podcasts in search results based on the content of the podcast, and let users save episodes for listening later. To enable your podcast in Search, follow the Podcast developer documentation.
• Try our new codelabs: Check out our new codelabs about how to add structured data, fix a Single Page App for Search, and implement Dynamic Rendering with Rendertron.

Be among the first to test new features

Your help is invaluable to making sure our products work for everyone. We shared some new features that we're still testing and would love your feedback and participation.

• Speed report: We're currently piloting the new Speed report in Search Console. Sign up to be a beta tester.
• Mini-apps: We announced Mini-apps, which engage users with interactive workflows and live content directly on Search and the Assistant. Submit your idea for the Mini-app Early Adopters Program.

Learn more about what's coming soon

I/O is a place where we get to showcase new Search features, so we're excited to give you a heads up on what's next on the horizon:

• High-resolution images: In the future, you'll be able to opt in to highlight your high-resolution images for your users. Stay tuned for details.
• 3D and AR in Search: We are working with partners to bring 3D models and AR content to Google Search. Check out what it might look like and stay tuned for more details.

We hope these cool announcements help & inspire you to create even better websites that work well in Search. Should you have any questions, feel free to post in our webmaster help forums, contact us on Twitter, or reach out to us at any of the next events we're at.

Posted by Lizzi Harvey, Technical Writer

Google I/O 2019 is starting tomorrow and will run for 3 days, until Thursday. Google I/O is our yearly developers festival, where product announcements are made, new APIs and frameworks are introduced, and Product Managers present the latest from Google to an audience of 7,000+ developers who fly to California.

However, you don't have to physically attend the event to take advantage of this once-a-year opportunity: many conferences and talks are live streamed on YouTube for anyone to watch. Browse the full schedule of events, including a list of talks that we think will be interesting for webmasters to watch (all talks are in English). All the links shared below will bring you to pages with more details about each talk, and links to watch the sessions will display on the day of each event. All times are Pacific Central time (California time).

• Tuesday, May 7th
  
  4pm - Building Successful Websites: Case Studies for Mature and Emerging Markets, with Aancha Bahadur, Charlie Croom, Matt Doyle, Rudra Kasturi, and Jesar Shah



• Wednesday, May 8th
  
  10.30am - Enhance Your Search and Assistant Presence with Structured Data, with Aylin Altiok and Will Leszczuk
  
  11.30am - Create App-like Experiences on Google Search and the Google Assistant, with Allen Harvey
  
  11.30am - Rapidly Building Better Web Experiences with AMP, with Adam Greenberg and Naina Raisinghani
  
  6.30pm - Unlocking New Capabilities for the Web, with Pete LePage and Thomas Steiner



• Thursday, May 9th
  
  10.30am - Google Search: State of the Union, with John Mueller and Martin Splitt
  
  1.30pm - Google Search and JavaScript Sites, with Zoe Clifford and Martin Splitt

What we did at I/O
The event was a wonderful way to meet many great people from various communities across the globe, exchange ideas, and gather feedback. Besides many great web sessions, codelabs, and office hours we shared a few things with the community in two sessions specific to Search:

• Deliver search-friendly JavaScript-powered websites with John Mueller and Tom Greenaway
• Build a successful web presence with Google Search with Mariya Moeva and John Mueller

The sessions included the launch of JavaScript error reporting in the Mobile Friendly Test tool, dynamic rendering (we will discuss this in more detail in a future post), and an explanation of how CMS can use the Indexing and Search Console APIs to provide users with insights. For example, Wix lets their users submit their homepage to the index and see it in Search results instantly, and Squarespace created a Google Search keywords report to help webmasters understand what prospective users search for.

During the event, we also presented the new Search Console in the Sandbox area for people to try and were happy to get a lot of positive feedback, from people being excited about the AMP Status report to others exploring how to improve their content for Search.

Hands-on codelabs, case studies and more
We presented the Structured Data Codelab that walks you through adding and testing structured data. We were really happy to see that it ended up being one of the top 20 codelabs by completions at I/O. If you want to learn more about the benefits of using Structured Data, check out our case studies.

During the in-person office hours we saw a lot of interest around HTTPS, mobile-first indexing, AMP, and many other topics. The in-person Office Hours were a wonderful addition to our monthly Webmaster Office Hours hangout. The questions and comments will help us adjust our documentation and tools by making them clearer and easier to use for everyone.

Highlights and key takeaways
We also repeated a few key points that web developers should have an eye on when building websites, such as:

• Indexing and rendering don’t happen at the same time. We may defer the rendering to a later point in time.
• Make sure the content you want in Search has metadata, correct HTTP statuses, and the intended canonical tag.
• Hash-based routing (URLs with "#") should be deprecated in favour of the JavaScript History API in Single Page Apps.
• Links should have an href attribute pointing to a URL, so Googlebot can follow the links properly.

Make sure to watch this talk for more on indexing, dynamic rendering and troubleshooting your site. If you wanna learn more about things to do as a CMS developer or theme author or Structured Data, watch this talk.

We were excited to meet some of you at I/O as well as the global I/O extended events and share the latest developments in Search. To stay in touch, join the Webmaster Forum or follow us on Twitter, Google+, and YouTube.

 Posted by Martin Splitt, Webmaster Trends Analyst