We knew this was coming and now Google officially launched the Google Webmaster Conference. The goal of this conference series is to bring top level webmaster related content, i.e. SEO, development, and other ways to make your site perform better in search, directly from Googlers to areas of the world that might not be able to have their own events or travel to events.
Here is what Google wrote:
Today we’re officially announcing the Webmaster Conference, a series of local events around the world. These events are primarily located where it’s difficult to access search conferences or information about Google Search, or where there’s a specific need for a Search event. For example, if we identify that a region has problems with hacked sites, we may organize an event focusing on that specific topic.
We want web creators to have equal opportunity in Google Search regardless of their language, financial status, gender, location, or any other attribute. The conferences are always free and easily accessible in the region where they’re organized, and, based on feedback from the local communities and analyses, they’re tailored for the audience that signed up for the events. That means it doesn’t matter how much you already know about Google Search; the event you attend will have takeaways tailored to you. The talks will be in the local language, in case of international speakers through interpreters, and we’ll do our best to also offer sign language interpretation if requested.
The format can change from event to event – some might be half day events, some may be longer. We saw flavors of this when Google announced the 15 events in India.
Currently there are two regions Google is hosting this event, one is in India and the other is in Indonesia – you can keep track of these events over here.
Some of the Googlers who run these events include Anna Ogawa. Technical Mobile Solutions Consultant, Google Japan; Gary Illyes, Web Trend Analyst, Google; Cherry Sireetorn Prommawi, Sr. Online Specialist, Google Singapore and Yariv Adan, Software Engineer, Google Assistant.
Gary Illyes from Google said it was “slightly harder than I expected” to take the events to global scale but he said “we’ll get there.” They also may live stream some of the events but it may be a bit complicated:
Certain sessions might be, but we’re also working with legal to make at least some of them live streamed. We’ll tweet when we know more
— Gary “鯨理” Illyes (@methode) June 11, 2019
To learn more, see https://events.withgoogle.com/wmc/.
Forum discussion at Twitter.