Google’s Martin Splitt and Gary Illyes recently addressed a common question in search marketing: how technical do SEO professionals need to be?
In a Search Off the Record podcast, they offered guidance on which technical skills are helpful in SEO and discussed the long-standing friction between developers and SEO professionals.
Splitt noted:
“I think in order to optimize a system or work with a system so deeply like SEOs do, you have to understand some of the characteristics of the system.”
However, he clarified that strong coding skills aren’t a requirement for doing effective SEO work.
Splitt, who regularly speaks at both developer and SEO events, acknowledged that the relationship between these groups can sometimes be difficult.
Splitt says:
“Even if you go to a developer event and talk about SEO, it is a strained relationship you’re entering.”
He added that developers often approach SEO conversations with skepticism, even when they come from someone with a developer background.
This disconnect can cause real-world problems.
Illyes shared an example of a large agency that added a calendar plugin across multiple websites, unintentionally generating “100 million URLs.” Google began crawling all of them, creating a major crawl budget issue.
Rather than recommending that SEO professionals learn to code, Splitt advises understanding how web technologies function.
Splitt states:
“You should understand what is a header, how does HTTPS conceptually work, what’s the certificate, how does that influence how the connection works.”
He also advised being familiar with the differences between web protocols, such as HTTP/2 and HTTP/1.1.
While SEO pros don’t need to write in programming languages like C, C++, or JavaScript, having some awareness of how JavaScript affects page rendering can be helpful.
Google also pointed out that SEO is a broad discipline, and the amount of technical knowledge needed can vary depending on your focus.
Splitt gave the example of international SEO. He initially said these specialists might not need technical expertise, but later clarified that internationalization often includes technical components too.
“SEO is such a broad field. There are people who are amazing at taking content international… they specialize on a much higher layer as in like the content and the structure and language and localization in different markets.”
Still, he emphasized that people working in more technical roles, or in generalist positions, should aim to understand development concepts.
Here’s what the discussion means for SEO professionals:
As websites become more complex and JavaScript frameworks continue to grow, technical literacy will likely become more important.
Google’s message is clear: SEOs don’t need to become developers, but having a working understanding of how websites function can make you far more effective.
For companies, closing the communication gap between development and marketing remains a key area of opportunity.
Listen to the full podcast episode below:
Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
Google’s Martin Splitt and Gary Illyes recently addressed a common question in search marketing: how technical do SEO professionals need to be?
In a Search Off the Record podcast, they offered guidance on which technical skills are helpful in SEO and discussed the long-standing friction between developers and SEO professionals.
Splitt noted:
“I think in order to optimize a system or work with a system so deeply like SEOs do, you have to understand some of the characteristics of the system.”
However, he clarified that strong coding skills aren’t a requirement for doing effective SEO work.
Splitt, who regularly speaks at both developer and SEO events, acknowledged that the relationship between these groups can sometimes be difficult.
Splitt says:
“Even if you go to a developer event and talk about SEO, it is a strained relationship you’re entering.”
He added that developers often approach SEO conversations with skepticism, even when they come from someone with a developer background.
This disconnect can cause real-world problems.
Illyes shared an example of a large agency that added a calendar plugin across multiple websites, unintentionally generating “100 million URLs.” Google began crawling all of them, creating a major crawl budget issue.
Rather than recommending that SEO professionals learn to code, Splitt advises understanding how web technologies function.
Splitt states:
“You should understand what is a header, how does HTTPS conceptually work, what’s the certificate, how does that influence how the connection works.”
He also advised being familiar with the differences between web protocols, such as HTTP/2 and HTTP/1.1.
While SEO pros don’t need to write in programming languages like C, C++, or JavaScript, having some awareness of how JavaScript affects page rendering can be helpful.
Google also pointed out that SEO is a broad discipline, and the amount of technical knowledge needed can vary depending on your focus.
Splitt gave the example of international SEO. He initially said these specialists might not need technical expertise, but later clarified that internationalization often includes technical components too.
“SEO is such a broad field. There are people who are amazing at taking content international… they specialize on a much higher layer as in like the content and the structure and language and localization in different markets.”
Still, he emphasized that people working in more technical roles, or in generalist positions, should aim to understand development concepts.
Here’s what the discussion means for SEO professionals:
As websites become more complex and JavaScript frameworks continue to grow, technical literacy will likely become more important.
Google’s message is clear: SEOs don’t need to become developers, but having a working understanding of how websites function can make you far more effective.
For companies, closing the communication gap between development and marketing remains a key area of opportunity.
Listen to the full podcast episode below:
Featured Image: Roman Samborskyi/Shutterstock
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It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making
The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution of letters, as opposed to using ‘Content here, content here’, making it look like readable English. Many desktop publishing packages and web page editors now use Lorem Ipsum as their default model text, and a search for ‘lorem ipsum’ will uncover many web sites still in their infancy.
It is a long established fact that a reader will be distracted by the readable content of a page when looking at its layout. The point of using Lorem Ipsum is that it has a more-or-less normal distribution
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