Mihai Aperghis (@mihaiaperghis), an SEO we reference here from time to time, is also a Google Product Expert and attended the Google Search Central Unconference the other week. He has written this blog post and I am posting it here as a super rare guest post on this site. Why? (1) Mihai rocks and (2) this site is about community and Product Experts are the essence of the Google community. I (Barry) personally was unable to attend due to a conflict. Note: Mihai did not ask for a link or a mention, but I added this so it is clear that he wrote this.

Last week marked the first-ever official Google SEO-focused event in Romania – Search Central Live Romania – on a sunny 4th of April in Bucharest. As a Search Central Product Expert who lives in Bucharest, the event made for an exciting occasion for people from my local SEO community to listen to and interact directly with Googlers.

John Mueller and Martin Splitt expertly shared much SEO knowledge in most of the event’s sessions. Additionally, several other Googlers provided insights within sessions focused more on publisher-related topics, such as elections, misinformation, and changes to third-party cookies.

As with other Search Central Live events, this was a free invitation-based occasion for SEO professionals, digital marketers, and publishers to gain deeper insights and interact directly with Googlers themselves, with close to 100 people attending.

Agenda

The official agenda included 8 SEO/Search-focused sessions covering introductory to slightly more intermediate subjects (including a highly enjoyable Q&A) and three other sessions surrounding other topics, focusing heavily on the upcoming election season.

Throughout the day, there were several breaks for grabbing lunch, a snack, or a coffee while also providing opportunities for networking and engaging in a quick chat with John, Martin, or anyone else from the Google team present at the event:

10:00 AM: Registration and networking

11:00 AM: Opening

11:10 AM: Welcome

11:20 AM: How Search works

11:40 AM: What’s new in Search

12:00 PM: Search and AI

12:20 PM: Analysing traffic drops

1:00 PM: Lunch & networking

2:00 PM: Mythbusting

2:30 PM: SEO for videos & images

2:50 PM: Best practices for e-commerce

3:10 PM: Search Q&A

3:30 PM: Coffee break

4:00 PM: Misinformation / Elections

5:30 PM: Ad Manager – prepare for the end of third party cookies

5:45 PM: Elections, Misinformation, 3P Cookies Q&A

6:00 PM: Closing & picture

6:10 PM: Networking

Session Highlights

While I didn’t manage to attend every session, I did so with most of them, especially those presented by John and Martin. One of the first sessions that comes to mind is “Search and AI”, where Martin covered some of the basics of what the opportunities and limitations of LLMs are, both in general as well as with a focus on Gemini and Google Search:

John’s best practices were very well received within the very next session on “Analysing traffic drops,” highlighting the use of Search Console and various scenarios that might impact organic rankings and traffic:

Lastly, one of the most awaited sessions was the Q&A session, with questions provided by the live audience and from a pre-submitted set. Some of the questions even generated quite a few laughs from everyone in the room:

All in all, this was a great experience, made possible by the fantastic support of Romanian Googlers such as Elisabeta Moraru and Teodora Patrauceanu. I hope John and Martin also had a great time and are considering returning soon — everyone who participated, as well as those who couldn’t attend, is really looking forward to another such event.

Until next time!

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