Google says a lot of things. Sometimes the search engine’s spokespersons are incredibly transparent and sometimes they’re bizarrely opaque. Sometimes they contradict each other and sometimes the effects of technologies being innovated on the far side of the Googleplex aren’t as well known by their spokespersons around the world. Today Jim and Dave discuss a number of things Google’s said in the last week that directly contradict things they told webmasters previously, focusing on core-update recoveries and the importance of core web vitals as potential or future ranking signals. We also talk about a terrible case of negative SEO, the Change.org petition for Google to restore hidden search term data for SEMs, and congratulate John Mueller for being named Search Personality of the Year. We also noted the panel hosted by Ginny Marvin, “The SEO Gender Gap and How to Close It”, being held online, Sept. 11, 2020.