Inside Google’s Content and Media Signals

Insights from Google’s Deep Dive Asia Pacific 2025 (Day 2 – Part 2)

Following an in-depth look at crawling, indexing, and tokenisation in Part 1, the second day at Google’s Search Central Live: Deep Dive Asia Pacific 2025 also focused on content strategy, JavaScript rendering, structured data, and global SEO. The sessions provided a clearer understanding of how Google evaluates on-page content, handles duplication, and surfaces multimedia in increasingly AI-enhanced search results.

For business owners and marketers managing multiple responsibilities, these sessions offered practical and timely advice to help ensure content is not just technically accessible, but strategically presented, language-aware, and discoverable across formats.

Let’s unpack the key insights.

HTML, Rendering, and Google-Friendly JavaScript

The foundation of SEO success remains stable, well-structured HTML. Google's systems depend on HTML parsing to understand a page’s layout, and while rendering technologies have improved, sites relying heavily on JavaScript (JS) continue to risk key content being missed.

The event distinguished between two types of JavaScript websites:

• JS-enhanced sites already include content in the raw HTML. JavaScript simply enhances the user experience - akin to “adding sprinkles to a cake.”
• JS-dependent sites generate content dynamically using JavaScript. Without rendering, Google sees “an empty plate.”

For JS-dependent pages, common SEO challenges arise:

• Content not visible in raw HTML = invisible to Google unless rendered.
• Fragmented URLs (e.g. #/tab2) can’t be crawled properly.
• Pages may appear valid but return soft 404s.
• Redirection via JavaScript can interfere with proper indexing.

To address these, Google advised optimising JS bundles, splitting files, deferring non-essential JS, and using standard <a href=""> links instead of JS routers. Rendering uses a headless version of Chrome, but Google has a timeout threshold; and if your content relies on user-triggered actions like scrolling or clicking, it might never be seen.

What this means for you:
View your page source and test URL inspection in Search Console. If Google can’t see your content, neither can your audience.

Understanding Page Importance and Word Placement

Google assigns weight to different parts of a page using the DOM (Document Object Model). Words in prominent areas - such as headers or centrepiece content - are treated as more important than those in sidebars or footers. This applies to both search rankings and AI-driven systems.

Marketers were reminded: you can’t place everything in the main content area of a single page. Prioritise your key information and ensure it’s prominently placed.

Duplication, Localisation, and Hreflang Best Practice

“60% of the internet is duplicated,” Cherry Prommwain noted, and Google’s systems are constantly deduplicating to choose a single, representative URL among similar content. This process uses machine learning and considers factors such as content clarity, rel-canonical signals, and localisation intent.

Crucially, translated pages (e.g. English to Japanese) are not seen as duplicates, but variations of the same language targeting different regions (e.g. English-NZ vs English-AU) often are. To avoid issues:

• Implement hreflang with correct ISO codes for language and region.
• Include return links - each version must point back to the other.
• Use absolute URLs (not relative), even across subdirectories or domains.
• Ensure each page uses only one language clearly - Google determines language based on content, not hreflang.

If pages cluster unintentionally (e.g. through geo-redirects), hreflang helps “bridge the gap” and clarify regional intent.

Tip: Set a default page (e.g. a language selector) for users outside your defined regions.

Structured Data: Why It Still Matters

As the web evolves, so do users’ expectations; condensed, enriched content is now the norm. Structured data (SD) helps Google interpret page context and enables eligibility for rich results. Best practices shared included:

• Keep structured data relevant to the content on the page.
• Avoid conflicting, duplicated, or redundant markup.
• Use unique identifiers where possible.
• Use modern implementation formats like JSON-LD (Google’s preferred method).

Importantly, adding more structured data does not trigger penalties. However, only certain fields are used to power enhanced features.

Structured data also helps explain images and videos, content types increasingly central to search experiences.

Making the Most of Image and Video Content

Images:

Google supports a wide range of formats, but prefers modern, compressed formats like WebP and AVIF for speed and quality. Use <picture> tags to provide multiple source formats and sizes. Descriptive alt text is still the most reliable way to ensure indexing.

Videos:

Video is now fully integrated across Search, Discover, and short-form results. In South-East Asia alone, 290 million people consume YouTube content, and over 40% of shoppers rely on video for decision-making. Google laid out key factors for video SEO success:

• High-quality, relevant content: Engaging and well-produced videos matter more than slick AI generation.
• Dedicated watch pages: Avoid burying videos inside tabs or carousels.
• Clear titles, metadata, and thumbnails: Optimise for both discovery and clicks.
• Structured data for videos: Use VideoObject markup with properties like name, description, thumbnailUrl, uploadDate, and duration.
• Inclusion in video sitemaps: Helps Google find embedded videos.
• Descriptive surrounding text: Offers context and helps interpret video intent.

Videos should be embedded in visible areas of a page, especially on mobile, and hosted on reliable platforms if you want to maximise exposure.

Search Features and Snippet Controls

Google discussed various HTML attributes and meta directives that help control how content appears in search:

• data-nosnippet: Blocks a specific part of a page from appearing in the search snippet.
• max-snippet, max-image-preview, max-video-preview: Let you control how much text/image/video content appears in results.
• notranslate: Stops Google from offering translation in Search results, useful when a translation would compromise accuracy.
• unavailable_after: Tells Google to remove a page from the index after a certain date,  ideal for events, auctions, or limited-time offers.

These attributes offer more granular control over your SERP appearance and can help reduce confusion or clutter in AI-enhanced environments.

A Note on Google’s AI Systems

The session closed with commentary on how generative and predictive models like BERT interact with content. Google’s emphasis remains on serving high-quality, meaningful content. The format may change - from snippets to AI Overviews to video carousels - but relevance, context, and clarity remain non-negotiable.

Interestingly, Google acknowledged that other AI systems likely rely on similar tokenisation logic and page interpretation methods. So optimising for Google also means preparing for a wider AI-driven web.

What This Means for You: Key Takeaways

• Audit your JS: Ensure critical content is available in raw HTML and not reliant on interactions to load.
• Prioritise clarity: Place key messages in prominent sections like headers or main content.
• Tidy up hreflang: Avoid broken language links and use self-referencing tags.
• Use structured data wisely: Align it with your content and follow modern standards.
• Elevate visual content: Use clear thumbnails, fast-loading formats, and structured markup for both images and videos.
• Control your snippets: HTML attributes like nosnippet and unavailable_after give you more control in SERPs.
• Think globally: Separate language versions with dedicated URLs and clear language cues.

Looking Ahead

As Google continues to refine its systems, the boundaries between technical SEO, content strategy, and AI-readiness grow ever blurrier. For marketers balancing multiple roles, clarity and intentionality across your content, markup, and localisation efforts will make the difference between discoverability and invisibility.

If you’re unsure whether your site structure, JavaScript, or localisation setup is supporting your SEO efforts, Altitude Search offers a free SEO Health Check. Designed for marketers and in-house teams alike, it helps identify unseen issues and opportunities for growth - no jargon, just practical insight.

Book your free SEO Health Check today.