What is Google Webmaster Tools?
10 years ago
Google Webmaster Tools allows you to check the indexing status of your website and gives you advice on how to optimize your site for better visibility. GWT is the standard tool to monitor your website’s performance. If you haven’t signed up for it yet, we really recommend this tool for every webmaster who wants to stay on top of things.
To get started with GWT, visit: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
By using GWT, you can improve your site’s performance by:
• Making sure that Google can access your content.
• Submitting new content for crawling and removing content you don’t want shown in search results.
• Optimizing how your results are shown so that it is more visually appealing to searchers.
• Monitoring your site for malware or spam issues so your website is clean.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: google webmaster tools, gwt, website performance
How do I add my website to GWT?
10 years ago
Visit https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/dashboard and click on the Add site now button.
Type in the URL of your website and click continue.
Verify that you own the site by downloading the HTML verification file and uploading it to your root folder. Once you have uploaded the file, click on Verify.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: google webmaster tools, gwt, website performance
The site dashboard on GWT
10 years ago
The site dashboard gives you the current status of crawl errors, search queries and sitemaps (if you’ve added any). It will also show you the new messages and critical issues of your website at the top of the page.
Pay attention to the site errors such as DNS, Server connectivity and Robots.txt. Also have a look at the URL Errors you might have under the Crawl Errors section.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: google webmaster tools, gwt, site dashboard, website performance
Why viewing the “site messages” is important?
10 years ago
Viewing the site messages lets you stay up to date with how your website is performing. Site messages will let you know if Googlebot can’t access your site or other critical issues. It is good to stay on top of things by viewing the site messages of your website
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: google webmaster tools, gwt, site messages, website performance
What is “Structured Data” and “Data Highlighter” in GWT?
10 years ago
If you click on the Search Appearance tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see links for Structured Data and Data Highlighter.
Structured data markup lets you add extra data on your pages as it is shown in the Google search results. For instance, IMDB.com attaches movie ratings and # of votes as such:
By going to Structured Data in GWT, you can see the different data types you’ve marked, the # of pages that have marked up data and the items with errors.
By using the Data Highlighter tool, you can mark data on your pages that will teach Google about the pattern of structured data on your website. The supported data types are:
• Articles
• Events
• Local businesses
• Restaurants
• Products
• Software applications
• Movies
• TV Episodes
• Books
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: data highlighter, structured data, website performance
What is “HTML Improvements” in GWT?
10 years ago
If you click on the Search Appearance tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for HTML Improvements.
HTML Improvements shows you which meta descriptions, title tags and non-index-able content needs to be addressed by the webmaster to improve the site’s user experience and performance.
In the sample data above, there are 233 duplicate meta tags and 33,224 duplicate title tags that should be addressed for this website example.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: HTML improvements, meta description, title tag, website performance
What is “Sitelinks” in GWT?
10 years ago
If you click on the Search Appearance tab on the side bar of GWT, you’ll see a link for Sitelinks.
Google will show sitelinks for results that they think will be useful to the user but sometimes it will show inappropriate links. The Sitelinks tool lets your demote links that are shown under your website in Google search results.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: google webmatser tools, gwt, sitelinks, website performance
What is “Search Queries” in GWT?
10 years ago
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
What is “Manual Actions” in GWT?
10 years ago
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.
After taking the necessary manual actions to fix the problem, such as disavowing links, you can request a review from Google.
Filed under: Documentation→Website Performance
Tags: google webmaster tools, gwt, manual actions, website performance
What is “International Targeting” in GWT?
10 years ago
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