The SEO Content Goblins wrote a couple weeks ago that their "SEO Starter Guide" would get a make-over and it would be released "soon."
Well, soon meant late last week, click here to read Google's Search Central Blog Post.
Google originally launched the SEO Starter Guide in 2008 and it's been expanded and modernized, translated, etc... over the years. The NEW SEO Starter Guide is a slimed down version of the original and updated for more of a newbie SEO audience.
Some of the Highlights of What They Removed and Shortened in the SEO Starter Guide:
Removed Structured data - more of a technical SEO thing not for SEO newbies.
Removed mobile-friendliness - no surprise, most sites are Mobile friendly and Google is mobile-first crawling now.
Compressed images section - they have a separate guide just on images.
Some of the newly added content was primarily around content and the SEO benefit section, like why should I do SEO. They also added in a "theories and ideas" section - which is primarily designed to debunk myths and things people shouldn't spend a ton of time caring about.
Google did announce that they will continue to review and updating their documentation and easier to understand for all in the future.
I think the Google SEO starter guide is really good for somebody just starting out in Digital Marketing and in understanding the high-level basics. As the SEO Content Goblins know though - SEO is and can be VERY Technical in the weeds in coding, and can also be very analytical and data based. Companies thinking that they can just read this and get all the answers and improve their organic traffic are going to be mistaken - as we know SEO is both art and both science. It takes a dedicated individual and cross-team collaboration from a technical, UX, and content approach. Involving the Paid, Content, Social, IT (web-developers), creative (images/videos), and more!