'Net Features : webmaster tools

Webmaster Tools New Site Verification Mods

Administrator — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 17:15:00 GMT

Google has made some changes and modifications to its Webmaster Tools verification system related to management of website verifications.

Webmasters can now see who the verified users on their sites are and now the verification method they used to achieve that status. That's useful information to know when you're managing sites within Webmaster Tools that were once under the control of another individual or agency.

Google is also now requiring that that the verification method be removed from a site before unverifying an owner within Webmaster Tools. If the verification (for example a meta tag or an HTML file) then there will be an error message shown. It's easy enough really to remove meta tags and HTML files that were once used for site verification, but this change likely the result of the delay in updating DNS records (a common problem).

Finally, Google also modified the CNAME verification string, making it shorter in order to support more DNS providers. Google's long CNAME was causing some problems for some users who were not able to use the verification method because some DNS systems limit the number of characters than can be used in DNS records.

Search Query Alerts from Google

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:38:00 GMT

The role that Google Webmaster Tools plays in the daily lives of many Web workers is a significant one.

From monitoring the health of a website (e.g. crawl errors), to understanding the queries that users employ to find a website, the most savvy ‘Net professionals make the information available through the platform a key driver of their decision making. For many however, the process is just too time intensive.

Fortunately, Google over the past year has introduced features into Webmaster Tools that help keep Webmasters (or anyone responsible for Web success) in the know about a site’s performance and prominence in the search engine’s index without forcing them to analyze all the data and identify the most important issues on their own.

Google previously rolled out alerts for Crawl Errors for example, but this week introduced alerts for Search Queries data. And the SEO community cheered!

The Search Queries feature in Webmaster Tools as you may well know shows the impressions and clicks of a website’s top pages over time. When there is a spike or a drop in either, Google will now post an alert in the account (there is a ways to set up forwarding so the message can be received via email) making it quite a bit easier to know about the most significant shifts occurring.

Know that spikes or drops are actually quite routine or common and that many factors can be at play and cause these alerts. For example, there may be technical issues caused by a storm one day, an on-site SEO update may have caused some redirects to break, or it may even simply be related to “differing demand for your content” as Google so sublimely stated. Whatever the reason, it's not hard to agree that the alerts will prove useful and be welcomed by users.

Google Offers Deep Look at Structured Data

Michael Garrity — Mon, 06 Aug 2012 16:35:00 GMT

With new websites popping up every single day, carefully crafted search engine optimization (SEO) practices are necessary for webmasters to make sure that their sites are still visible and don’t get buried by all of the new content that finds its way online every day.

When Google, Yahoo, and Bing teamed up like a search engine Justice League to establish Schema.org, they helped open the door for a whole new level of SEO that adds a more intricate layer to Web pages with the universal acceptance of standardized structured data. This helps websites further differentiate themselves from their competitors and helps return more accurate results for some searches.

Recently, Google announced a new feature as part of its Webmaster Tools offering called the Structured Data Dashboard (under the Optimization tab), which allows Web professionals to verify that Google accurately understands new markup on a site, while also detecting problems with existing page markup.

The Dashboard will provide users with three views of the structured data on their sites.

First is a top level site view that aggregates structured data information by vocabulary schema and root item type, meaning an item that isn’t an attribute of another on the same page.

In addition, the Dashboard offers an itemtype-level view that provides per-page details for each item type. Google derives this information by parsing through and storing a fixed number of pages for each site and item type, which are then stored in decreasing order based on the time in which they were crawled. The search engine will also keep tabs on all of a site’s structured data markup, and for some item types, it will even have specialized preview columns.

Finally, there will also be a page-level view that shows details about all of the attributes of every item type on a given page, and a link to the Rich Snippet testing tool for the page being studied.

More Top Search Queries in Google Webmaster Tools

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 15:50:00 GMT

While Google is putting the virtual smack down on some SEOs, the search engine is also playing nice by providing a set of terrific presents to those donning their white hats in the form of additional search query data in Google Webmaster Tools.

Webmasters and SEOs can now access up to 90 days (three months) of historical data on search queries. The top search query data was previously restricted to just 35 days.

There are two other improvement to Google Webmaster Tools that were just announced and are also worthy of note. Google indicated that basic search query data will be accessible as soon as site ownership is verified, and that it will be collecting data for the top 2,000 queries for which verified sites get clicks.

Crawl Errors: Major Upgrade for Google Webmaster Tools

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:37:00 GMT

Several rather significant enhancements are being rolled out in Google Webmaster Tools this week. Google announced that it now detects and reports several new types of errors, is showing which errors are most important, and is letting webmasters dive into the details.

Google will be splitting the types of errors reported in GWT into two types - site errors (those which affect an entire site, e.g. DNS resolution failures) and URL errors (those where Googlebot tried to crawl a URL but failed, e.g. a 404 error). Google now tracks the "failure rates" for each type of site-wide error and will try to send alerts when the errors become frequent enough to warrant attention.

Perhaps the best part of this round of enhancements is that Google is helping webmaster prioritize the errors. Webmasters could previously see up to 100,000 errors of each type but there was no way to sort, search or mark the progress made in correcting those errors. Now, Google is showing what they think are the 1000 most important errors up front, enabling webmasters to indicate to Google when those errors have been fixed, and even view details about them - and that's where things get really good. Clicking on an individual error URL will show a detail pane with information including the last time Google attempted to crawl the URL, when the problem was first noticed and a brief explanation of the error.

Bing Organic Keyword Research Tool Built to Impress

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 15:00:00 GMT

Bing announced several new features in its Webmaster Tools offering this week. Most notable was the introduction of an impressive keyword research tool.

Available only within Webmaster Tools (WMT) accounts, Bing's keyword research tool (see a screenshot below) provides search marketers the ability to see query volume data and related phrases across different countries and languages. The keyword research tool holds data on six months' worth of queries, so users will be able to select a date range and see query volume fluctuations. There is, however, a two-week latency so you may not see the most recent data available.

What is interesting about the tool is that it leverages "raw" organic query data, meaning it is not "rounded" (modified) in any way. adCenter CPC data is also shown to help advertisers understand the cost of paid ads for keywords and phrases they choose to promote their website under. By hovering over one of the related phrases, Bing shows the average cost per click and average bid for both the MainLine (ads that appear above organic listings) and Sidebar (ads appearing to the right of organic listings).

There are a few other noteworthy features of the tool including a "history" option which shows the last 25 queries entered into the keyword research tool, and the ability to click on any phrase in the list and "pivot" to data around that phrase and related keywords. But that's not all. Search marketers can even sort by impression count (i.e. lowest to highest).

Bing also announced the introduction of Bing Webmaster Tools API which will enable developers to use Bing WMT data in other applications.

Related Bing News from Website Magazine

- Bing Linked Pages Rolling Out

- Tracking Real Time Trends with msnNOW

- SEO Data Mechanics: Titles and Descriptions

Bing Webmaster Tools Update: Deeper Crawl Details and More

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 01:20:00 GMT

Bing is rolling out a long list of new features and improvements for its Webmaster Tools offering. The updates focus on providing webmasters with the ability to "share more data" with the search engine and that's exactly what it has done. As Bing closes in on 30 percent search market share, many of these features will become essential in the search marketers toolbox in 2012 and beyond.

Crawl Detail Information
Bing is expanding its Crawl Details information, showing inbound links to a given URL regardless of the header response code. Previously, users of Bing's Webmaster Tools were limited to seeing only those inbound links which pointed to pages returning a 400 header response code (e.g. 404 - file not found). Now, anything listed under the 200, 400 and 500 codes will, by URL, display inbound links to the URL. Search marketers will also be able to see any URLs listed under the Robots.txt and Malware headings - which is important for a variety of reasons obviously including the influence on rankings.

URL Normalization Suggestions
Bing will also be placing URL normalization suggestions within Webmaster Tools accounts. These suggestions are disabled by default, but BWT users can add them selectively and are able to increase the number of query string parameters that can be normalized per site from 25 items to 50. The timing of this update could not be better as the holiday shopping season is fast approaching for ecommerce merchants/Internet retailers. While there are certainly instances when 50+ parameters are needed, those with "parameter heavy" URL structures should look into ways to solve any canonicalization issues which maybe negatively impacting rankings.

DNS Verification
In order to claim a website/domain in BWT, webmasters need to verify ownership. Nothing new there. Previous choices were either a code snippet that needed to be added to page headers or by uploading an XML file, but now, webmasters have a third option – placing a CNAME record in their DNS. While the merits and risks associated with adding an additional CNAME into the DNS are unknown, this may signifiy Microsoft's willingness to play a more involved role in the search marketer/search engine relationship. WM recommends using the XML verification method as it remains the least intrusive.

adCenter Data
The most important addition to Bing Webmaster Tools I believe may just be the integration of data from adCenter within webmaster tools accounts. When viewing traffic data and looking at which keywords drove traffic, webmasters will notice an average CPC column. The new feature also allows for a quick view of keywords and associated CPCs.

Bing Webmaster Tools is still playing catch up to its competition in Google Webmaster Tools, at least in terms of features, but these additions show it is inching ever closer to the search giant - just like its search market share.

Webmaster Tools in GA Arrives

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 23:30:00 GMT

Google has announced that the integration between Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics is now complete after a pilot program was set up in June of this year.

A new section has been created in Google Analytics called “Search Engine Optimization” (has a nice ring to it) which resides in the “Traffic Sources” section. The reports available include Queries, Landing Pages, and a geographic summary. The reports will show impressions, clicks and CTR for the top queries and landing pages.

To use the reports, it is necessary to link Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools accounts together – which takes little more than a few seconds. After connecting the accounts the information should start appearing instantly. Note that no data is available from the most recent 2 calendar days.

Parameter Handling in Google Webmaster Tools

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 21:03:00 GMT

Google announced that it has made several major improvements to the way it handles parameters within URLs.

Important note: any configuration of existing URL parameters made in the old version of the feature will be visible in the new version.

URL Parameters help web masters control which URLs on a site should be crawled by Googlebot depending on the parameters that appear in these URLs. The functionality provides a powerful way to prevent Google from crawling duplicate content on your site.

There is a lot involved in Google’s URL parameters feature but today’s changes aim to help all involved with better handling capabilities. In addition to being able to assign a crawl action to an individual parameter, it is now possible to describe the behavior of the parameter.

Web masters will need to indicate to Google whether or not the parameter changes the content of the page as seen by the user. If it does change (e.g. narrow content or reorder content) then the URL parameters feature is where you should start.

If the parameters do not affect page content Googlebot will choose URLs with a “representative value of this parameter" and will crawl the URLs with this value. If a parameter does change the content of a page however, web masters can now indicate to Google four ways to crawl URLs with the parameter – “Let Googlebot decide,” “Every URL,” Only crawl URLs with value=x,” or “No URLs”.

The No URLs option is new and deserves the most attention. According to Google, “This option is the most restrictive and, for any given URL, takes precedence over settings of other parameters in that URL.” If the URL contains a parameter that is set to the “No URLs” option, it will never be crawled even if other parameters in the URL are set to “Every URL.”

Remove URLs from Google

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 17 May 2011 23:30:00 GMT

Google announced today that they have removed a cumbersome and redundant requirement for removing URLs from its index via Google Webmaster Tools.

The search engine will no longer require webmasters to block access to the URL they want to remove first prior to submitting the URL removal request. And the webmasters cheered!

Since webmasters already validated and verified the site, Google felt it redundant to require webmasters/site owners to block the URL to prove once again they are the site owner. According to the post, "You’ve already verified ownership of the site, we can eliminate this requirement to make it easier for you, as the site owner, to remove unwanted pages (e.g. pages accidentally made public) from Google’s search results."

Keep in mind that URL removals are only temporary and last 90-days. To remove URLs and pages permanently from Google, webmasters will need to permanently remove them by 404ing the page or blocking them via robots.txt file or a noindex meta tag.

Google Analytics, Meet Webmaster Tools

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 21:15:00 GMT

Google continues to provide amazing ways in which search marketing professionals can improve their campaign efforts. The latest is this week’s announcement that webmasters using Google Analytics to track site data can link verified sites in Webmaster Tools when using the same Google account. What does this mean to you?

Perhaps the most valuable aspect of connecting the two services is that users are able to access the Google Analytics Referring Pages report from within Google Webmaster Tools. This means that you will be able to “understand the overall trends in traffic volume from referrals, as well as the sites driving those trends,” according to Google.

This is quite the important development for a few reasons, but perhaps most notable is that webmasters will be able to use the data to see if the sites that link to them most frequently or the content that is linked to the most on a website are actually driving traffic. Why is it important to know that? Well, should you be witnessing links that are not driving traffic you can assume that there is not a lot of value in them which might in turn encourage you to seek out those that do.

This might just be the first value proposition from connecting the two accounts - in the future you might see others. For example, it is completely possible that Google could take data currently available in Webmaster tools (information on impressions or average position for example) and show the relationship between a number of variables including unique visits, time on site, etc.

WM won’t go into detail about how to link a verified site in Webmaster Tools to a Google Analytics profile but we will say this – the entire process takes just a few minutes and you’d be nearing foolish not to do so. Expect a lot more to come from the Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools connection in the near future.

Bing Webmaster Tools – New Inbound Link Feature

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 20 Dec 2010 20:27:00 GMT

Bing announced the release of a new Inbound Link feature into its Webmaster Tools offering. The feature provides registered site owners the ability to retrieve data about links pointing to their sites.

As you might imagine, Bing received numerous requests for the feature and it’s excellent to see the search engine acting upon those recommendations as it is becoming increasingly important for search engine optimization professionals to understand how their sites are being ranked on Bing and its affiliated sites. While it falls short of what Google provides in Webmaster Central it is definitely a step in the right direction.

The functionality includes an ability to understand the number of inbound links over a period of time to a site, the number of inbound links by page including URL and Anchor Text details and an option to export link data for analyzing offline.

Search Queries Update in GWT

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 14 Dec 2010 20:30:00 GMT

Google has made a noteworthy improvement to the "Search queries" and "Links to your site" features available in Webmaster tools. Once the domain of hard core SEO’s alone, anyone responsible for improving search marketing campaigns will be able to benefit from the new features and will need to get familiar as the data is more actionable than what you might find in your analytics account.

Users of GWT are now able to see search queries data for their site's individual pages. Now when users visit the search queries feature a new tab titled "Top Pages" is available. The tab lists impression, click and position data for the top pages on a site based on those pages performance in the Google index. Selecting one of the individual pages will reveal a list of the queries driving traffic to the page along with impressions and clicks for each.

For the visual learners, Google has even added pie charts to show the proportions of search type, location and traffic. This enhancement makes filtering, dare I say, fun. Another handy addition is the ability filter top queries report based on whether they contain or do not contain individual keywords.

The information now available courtesy of these features is far deeper (and meaningful) than what is available in Google Analytics - even for those using very refined filters and goals in place. The reason is that GWT is essentially including numbers from total searches and what each page gets for them. There are even filters for traffic by location - quite helpful if you plan on buying advertising or are focusing in on some geo-SEO.

Those responsible for link building to their websites will also find that GWT is showing “intermediate links” – a link to your site that links to one URL which then redirects to another. Google has also made available the ability to download all the links pointing to your site which can be reviewed at any time outside of GWT.

Links to Your Site Report Enhanced at GWT

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 20:17:00 GMT

Google Webmaster Tools has updated its “Links to Your Site” feature to show which domains are linking to a website. The improvement should provide those responsible for maintaining competitive link profiles with a greater ability to track changes and understand where links to their site are coming from.

The overview page currently shows three sections – who links the most, how you data is linked, and your most linked content.

Selecting the “More >>” link under the “Who links the most” section reveals a new view that shows all the domains that link to your site. The individual listings can be expanded to display the actual pages from your site which are linked to by that domain.

Webmaster can also see the actual pages that are linked to most often. From the overview page users can see a listing of all a site’s most linked page and a link count for each page (as well as a count of domains linking to that page). When one of the pages is selected and expanded you are able to see domains linking to that page and the number of links to the page from each domain listed. Google is now including links redirected using 301 or 302 HTTP redirects to make the reports more comprehensive.

Webmaster Tools Update - Search Query Goodness

Administrator — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 07:17:00 GMT

Google released several updates to Webmaster Tools which aim to provide site owners and managers with "more detail and more control" over how a site appears in search results.

Google has added a "change" column next to the impresions, clicks, clickthrough rate (CTR) and position columns. This column is connected to the date range that is specified which will be useful when tring to pinpoint a particular change occurred. (see image below)

And, it gets even better. Now, each query (keyword or phrase) listed links to a query details page which includes a graph of impressions and clicks for that specific query, providing a quick visual of its performance in the search results over time. (see image below)

Below that you will see a table listing of the pages returned in search results along with impressions, clicks and CTR. The data is sortable and can be downloaded as well.

Google has also made some changes to how it handles parameters. Google introduced parameter handling last year which allows webmaster to specify URL parameters and whether they should be ignored or not (essentially you are telling Google it only needs to crawl and index one specific page, not the same page with different parameters). Webmasters now have the ability to choose a specific value among the know values for a given URL parameter (important when the parameter is relevant to the content, but when different values of the parameter lead to similar pages.