Jacques Bouchard

Technical SEO: don't just submit the sitemap index file in Google Search Console, you'll need to submit all important sitemaps individually also. When I get access to a clients GSC, often for very large sites, I unfortunately don't always have access to the indexing data that I need from the get-go. A core reason for this is when only the sitemap index file has been submitted, and not the individual sitemaps for core parts of a site e.g. products, categories, articles, guides etc. This approach effectively applies to all types of sites. Whether it be news publishers (where articles are often grouped within sitemaps by date), eCommerce sites, marketplaces, or sites of any kind. When you think about large sites that are maxing out on the amount of pages that they're squishing into a sitemap (50K is the limit), you're losing a great deal of insight along the way, especially if you're only able to view page indexing for millions of URLs at a time. I actually think that Google should really do this automatically when sitemaps are detected within the index, due to the usefulness of the reporting, but I do also understand there it does require input from the site owner in the first instance. If you haven't added your sitemaps to GSC in this way yet, get it over and done with and make the change now. If you end up working with someone in a technical SEO engagement, they will be thankful that you did (if they understand the importance of this reporting view).

SEO Tip: when it comes to using Schema for the homepage on a site, there are two types that I gravitate towards and recommend (especially for eCommerce stores). The two types are Organization and WebSite Schema, being tags that I see genuine utility in for sites when added, but I regularly see as missing from the homepage for sites. WebSite Schema is a special one in particular, having influence over the Site Name that appears in search results, where Google will often look to the name specified within this tag and present it in SERPs. For large eCommerce stores that may have various regional domains, while the homepage for the core region (such as the US) might have the correct tag, it is not uncommon for WebSite to be missing from the homepage across other regions. This can result in some messiness in Google's SERPs and confusion in the signals received. For instance, a site that I was working with recently didn't have WebSite on their AU domain, resulting in it randomly having the NZ domain (e.g. Example .co.nz) showing as the site name, when it should have just been 'Example' or 'Example AU' appearing. For Organization Schema, this is one that is effectively a no-brainer. I've seen it become quite influential in recent years, with an example being a site I was working with not being able to be shown as an entity within autocomplete. After adding Organization, the large card treatment within autocomplete for the brand started showing a week after implementing. Similar can be said about the brand/merchant knowledge panel for sites. The trend for the eCommerce version of this panel has been heavily skewed toward being influenced by Merchant Centre Next more recently, with there now being features such as payment options, trending products, shipping and returns, and even an AI Chat that serves free listing results. While there are various factors that come into play to have this panel consistently appear for your brand (prominence and size, along with a Wikipedia article often being a key step), I do find that the information provided within Organization is a core fallback signal to influence some of the inclusions. We saw the influence of Organization increase for merchant knowledge panels more recently, where Google now allows you to specify product policies such as 'returns' and loyalty program information within this markup, again solidifying the importance of having this markup located on the homepage of your site. On the most basic level for Schema implementation, I would suggest ensuring that you have both Organization and WebSite located on the homepage of your site. There are obvious benefits that shouldn't be ignored for SEO. And once you have the panel appearing, make sure to customise this information with the ‘brand profile’ feature in GMC Next.