Google's 2 Free SEO Learning Paths Turned Into a 4 Week Training Plan

Google's SEO learning paths give you a free, ordered route through its own training videos. Google Search Central published the 2 playlists on 6 October.

Before this, you had to piece a course together from series like Search for Beginners, Ask Googlebot and Search Off the Record. Google says as much in the announcement.

"Finding a clear, sequential learning path from scratch can sometimes be challenging." - Daniel Waisberg, Search Advocate, Google

The playlists come with no timeline. Here's one you can run in 4 weeks, with a task on your own site each week.

What are Google's SEO learning paths?

Google's SEO learning paths are 2 curated YouTube playlists from Google Search Central, published on 6 October 2026. Search fundamentals for beginners covers how Search works, Search Console and Google Trends. Technical SEO fundamentals covers crawl directives, indexing at scale, rendering and Search Console APIs.

What each playlist covers

Here are the 6 topic groups from Google's announcement:

• Fundamentals: how Search works, from crawling and indexing to serving and the anatomy of results
• Fundamentals: Search Console setup, performance reports and Search Console Insights
• Fundamentals: using Google Trends for SEO and spotting trending topics
• Technical: robots.txt, crawl stats reports and managing crawl budget
• Technical: indexation issues, the URL Inspection tool and duplicate content
• Technical: how browsers parse HTML, page weight, bulk data exports and Search Console APIs

Google says the technical playlist skips the high-level basics. If you're a developer, you can start at week 3.

Your 4 week plan with 1 practice task a week

Weeks 2 and 3 each hold 2 topic groups, so block extra time there. Weeks 1 and 4 hold 1 each.

Run each task the same week you watch. The videos stick far better once your own numbers are on screen.

While you're in Search Console in week 2, check the new multimodal filter for Google Lens traffic. It shows pages people reached through image-led searches.

Who should start where

If you're new to SEO or you run content, do all 4 weeks in order. Week 2 is where most of your day-to-day reporting lives.

If you're a developer or technical SEO, skim week 1 and spend your real time on weeks 3 and 4. That matches Google's own split of the 2 playlists.

Bengaluru gets the live version in 1 week

Search Central Live returns to Bengaluru on 30 October 2026. Google's last India run was in 2023.

Google lists talks on crawling, indexing, structured data and search quality. The event is in person only, with no live stream or recording.

If you got a seat, weeks 1 and 3 are your prep. Google says selected applicants hear back by 24 October at the latest.

If you're watching from home, the 2 playlists cover the same ground at your own pace.

The same basics carry into AI search too, in line with Google's guidance that AI search optimisation is still SEO.

3 things to do this week

Book 4 recurring slots in your calendar now, 1 per week, before the plan slips.

Open Search Console before you press play on week 2. The reports make more sense with your own data in front of you.

Keep a running list of questions as you go. If you're in Bengaluru on 30 October, Google has set aside Q&A time for exactly those.

Disclaimer: This article is AI-assisted and may contain errors, so please verify key details against the linked sources.