If you click on the Search Traffic tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for Search Queries.
The Search Queries page shows the search queries that people used to in Google search to click on your site and the top webpages on your website they go to. By default, it will show the report for the past 30 days but you can change the date range at the top right of the graph.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: search queries, top pages, top queries, website performance
If you click on the Search Traffic tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for Manual Actions.
The Manual Actions page is probably one of the most important pages to check on GWT. Manual Actions will let you know whether you have a manual action to take to fix your website for Google. Usually this means that your site has been de-indexed or penalized due to spam, hacked site, hidden text or keyword stuffing, thin content with little or no added value, image mismatch or unnatural links. This could happen if you hired someone to do SEO work for you and they used blackhat SEO methods or maybe your site was breached by a hacker.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: google webmaster tools, gwt, manual actions, website performance
If you click on the Search Traffic tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for International Targeting.
If you manage a website that has pages that are designed for users in a specific country speaking a specific language, you may want to display the relevant language and country version of your pages to those users using international targeting.
There are two general mechanisms you can use to ensure your content reaches the right users:
1. URL-level targeting
1. Page-level markup – use tag in the section of your pages.
2. Sitemaps
3. HTTP headers
4. Site-wide targeting
The International Targeting page will show whether you have any hreflang tags on your website. You can also click the Country tab to set your entire website to target users in a specific country.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: google webmaster tools, gwt, international targeting, website performance
If you click on the Search Traffic tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for Mobile Usability.
The Mobile Usability page lets you know how many pages on your website have errors related to mobile usability. Some of the common errors related to mobile are: viewport not being configured, touch elements too close, small font size, flash usage and content not sized to viewport.
A simple way to fix viewport not being configured errors is to add this meta tag to all of your pages in the
section.Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: google webmaster tools, gwt, mobile usability, website performance
If you click on the Google Index tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for Index Status.
The Index Status provides stats of the URLs that were indexed for the site in the past year. Here you will find the total indexed, blocked by robots and removed. There is also a line graph below. A steady rise for total indexed is good. If you see that there is a sudden drop in indexed pages, it might mean that Google is having trouble accessing your site.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: blocked by robots, google webmaster tools, index status, removed, total indexed, website performance
If you click on the Google Index tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for Content Keywords.
The Content Keywords page lists the top keywords that are most significant to your site. This page shows you how Google interprets your website. You can click the “show more…” button to extend the list. If you find keywords on top of your list that is irrelevant to your site such as “Viagra”, it could mean that your site may have been hijacked by spammers or hacked. If this is the case, you can implement countermeasures for spammers.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: content keywords, google webmaster tools, gwt, website performance
If you click on the Google Index tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for Remove URLs.
The Remove URLs page lets you add URLs from your site that you wish to not be crawled by Google and removed from the search results. This is great tool to remove links on your site that may contain sensitive data from showing up in Google search results.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: google webmaster tools, gwt, remove URLs, website performance
If you click on the Crawl tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for Crawl Errors.
The Crawl Errors page lets you know these 3 site errors for the past 90 days:
• DNS errors
• Server errors
• Robots.txt failure
It will also let you know whether you have URL errors pertaining to Desktop, Smartphone, Feature Phone and Android Applications.
To diagnose your URL errors, you can click the Download button within the table to retrieve the top 1,000 errors and check each URL manually to see what’s wrong. If you don’t have that many URL errors, you can simply click on the link to see more details about the problem. Once you have addressed the error, you can checkmark the URL and select the “Mark as fixed” button.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: crawl errors, google webmaster tools, gwt, site errors, url errors, website performance
If you click on the Crawl tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for Crawl Stats.
The Crawl Stats page shows 3 different graphs for pages crawled per day, kilobytes downloaded per day and time spent downloading a page (in milliseconds) by the Googlebot. This is a simple way to see how well your site performed in the past 90 days. You can check the high, average and low numbers to see if your website has been performing as expected. Be aware of any big dips or spikes in these graphs.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: crawl stats, google webmaster tools, gwt, website performance
If you click on the Crawl tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for Fetch as Google.
Fetch as Google is probably one of the most important tools for a blogger or a website that releases new content every day. If you have new articles or pages on your site that were just published by you or your team of writers and needs to be indexed by Google immediately, use the Fetch as Google tool. Paste the link to article there and click “Fetch”.
When the status changes to “complete”, you’ll see a button by it called “Submit to index”.
Click the “Submit to index” and you’ll have the option to make Googlebot crawl only that URL or crawl that URL and its direct links. Checkmark the one you think is suitable and click Go. In a few minutes, your page will be indexed on Google.
You want to be the first to have your news indexed by Google so that it can be listed at the top of the results. Sometimes when the news is a hot enough topic, you may find a big spike in organic visitors.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: fetch as google, google webmaster tools, gwt, submit to index, website performance