Google Search Central Asia Pacific 2025 focused on three pillars over the three days.
The theme for day one was crawling, and day two of the event focused on indexing, with a big announcement about the new Google Trends API entering alpha.
Day three picked up from there, diving into how Google actually returns search results.
The serving infrastructure encompasses query understanding, result retrieval, index selection, ranking, and feature application, including rich results, before presenting them to the user.
Making Sense Of User Queries
Cherry Prommawin provided a detailed explanation of how Google interprets users’ queries.
Not all queries are straightforward.
In languages like Chinese or Japanese, there are no spaces between words, so Google has to learn where words start and end by looking at past queries and documents. This is known as segmenting, and not all languages require this.
After that, it removes stopwords unless they’re part of a meaningful phrase or entity, like “The Lord of the Rings.”
Then, it expands the query to include synonyms across all languages to better match what the user is actually looking for (see image above).
Context plays a significant role in how Google understands and responds to queries. A crucial aspect of this is the utilization of contextual synonyms.
Image from author, July 2025These aren’t like the typical synonyms you’d find in an English dictionary. Instead, they’re created to help return better search results, based on how words are used in real-world searches and content.
Google might learn that people searching for “car hire” often click on pages that say “rental car,” so it treats the two terms as similar in the right context. This is what Google refers to as “siblings.”
These relationships are mostly invisible to users, but they help connect queries to the most relevant information, even when the exact words don’t match.
Image from author, July 2025How Google Understands Quality
Alfin Hotario Ho provided a clear explanation of how Google evaluates quality in search results.
Quality is just one of many signals Google uses when ranking pages, but it’s an important one.
Over the years, Google has attempted to define what “quality” means, and it consistently returns to five key points:
- Focus on people-first content.
- Expertise.
- Content and quality.
- Presentation and production.
- Avoid creating search engine-first content.
Image from author, July 2025Ho highlighted the Quality Rater Guidelines as a useful resource. These guidelines don’t directly influence ranking, but they help explain how Google measures whether its systems are performing well.
When the guidelines change, they reflect updates in Google’s thinking about what constitutes good content.
There are four main pillars of quality in the guidelines:
- Effort: Content should be made for people, not search engines. It should clearly show time, skill, and first-hand knowledge.
- Originality: The content should offer something new – original research, fresh analysis, or reporting that goes beyond what’s already out there.
- Talent or Skill: It should be well-written or produced free from obvious errors, and show a strong level of craft. You also don’t need to be an expert in something, as long as you can demonstrate verifiable first-hand experience.
- Accuracy: It must be factually correct, supported by evidence, and consistent with expert or public consensus when possible.
Other key takeaways from Ho’s session include:
- From E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), it is clear that trust matters most.
- Even if a topic isn’t about health, money, or safety (Your Money or Your Life), Google still prioritizes trustworthy content.
- If a page strongly disagrees with general expert opinion, it may be seen as less reliable overall.
- Lots of 404 or noindex pages on a website are not a quality issue. 404 is a technical issue, as is the “noindex” tag.
Image from author, July 2025What Are Quality Updates?
Google updates its search systems for three primary reasons: to support new content formats, to enhance content quality, or to combat spam.
These updates help ensure that people receive useful and relevant results when they search.Supporting New Content Formats
As new content types become more popular, such as short videos or interactive visuals, users start to expect to find them in search results.
If enough people show interest, Google may launch new features to match that demand.
This could include new filters or information views in the results. These updates help keep Search useful and aligned with how people want to explore information.
Improving Content Breadth And Relevance
The internet is constantly growing, and many topics become saturated. That makes it harder to find the best content.
To improve this, Google rolls out core updates. These updates don’t target specific websites or pages.
Instead, they improve how Google ranks content across the web with the overarching goal of surfacing higher-quality results overall.
Combating Low-Quality And Spam Content
Some people try to game the system with low-effort content. Google isn’t perfect, and spammers look for gaps to exploit.
In response, Google launches targeted updates that adjust how its systems detect spam or low-quality signals. These changes aim to remove poor content from search results.
Recovering From Google Updates
Core Updates
You’re technically not penalized, so technically there’s no recovery like with spam updates.
Google recommends that you should:
Continue doing a great job, look at what your competitors are doing better, and learn from sites that are doing better than you.
Spam Updates
Remove the type of spam that Google has mentioned in its blog communications.
Caveats On Structured Data Usage
Google addressed some common myths surrounding structured data, particularly its connection to serving and ranking.
None of these are new, but the reiteration has been based on continued questions around the impact and value of adding structured data.
Not A Direct Ranking Factor
Adding structured data to your site won’t directly improve your rankings. But, it can make your listings more attractive in search results, which might lead to more clicks.
That added engagement could help your site over time.
No Guarantees
Just because you’ve added structured data doesn’t mean Google will show rich results. The algorithms decide when and where it makes sense to display them.
Google Can Add Rich Results On Its Own
Even without structured data, Google may still display enhanced results, such as your site name or breadcrumbs, if it can infer that information from your page content.
It Needs Ongoing Maintenance
Structured data isn’t a one-time task. You should check it regularly to ensure it remains accurate and error-free.
Keeping it up to date helps you stay eligible for enhanced search features.
That’s all from Google Search Central Live in Thailand. There have been a lot of insights and a big announcement over the last three days.
I recommend that SEOs review the last three articles and digest what Google has said. Then, consider how they can apply that to their strategies for 2025.
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Featured Image: Dan Taylor/SALT.agency