It seems like forever since Google first announced a Sitemaps program for webmasters; allowing the website owner to submit their web addresses to Google for indexing and crawling. Sitemaps has since evolved into a suite of Google services and tools - Google Webmaster Central, which allows webmasters to better understand how their site performs and is viewed by the search engine as well as diagnostic and reporting tools designed to aid the website owner in addressing issues and resolving problems. This post is meant to provide an overview of Google Webmaster Central, highlighting how to use the service and specific functionality many of our clients have found valuable in their search engine marketing efforts.

Why Webmasters Would Want To Use These Tools
In summary, here are some initial reasons why website owners should consider utilizing Google’s webmaster tools, as an integrated strategy for search engine marketing.

• There is concern related to how often or how accurately Google crawls your web pages.
• Content is behind a form or buried deep in the website structure.
• More accurate inbound link detail than Google’s traditional “link:www.domain.com” command.
• Better understanding of how Google interprets your website’s content.

Webmaster Registration

Screenshot of the registration screen

The registration process is simple and takes minutes. The only requirement for registration is a valid email address, which will be needed in order to verify the new account information. Website owners can register with Google Webmaster Central using any form of email information (having a Gmail account - Google’s own free email tool - is not a requirement).

Adding and Verifying A Website

Once a new account is opened, the next step in the process is adding the applicable website for tracking and reporting. While webmasters may be tempted to add multiple domains of the competition found in search results and traditional business, its important to realize that there is a verification process required in order to obtain detailed information on a website. The following screenshots show two examples of what webmasters will see once they enter a web address, but overall, Google easily walks a new user through the verification process and explains what needs to be done.

Webmasters have two options for verifying their site information: adding a meta tag (for verification information included) to the home page or uploading a blank html file (with a specific filename for verification purposes) to the root directory of the website (example: http://www.domain.com/verification-file.html). Both options are fairly straight forward and as long as FTP access is available, the process of uploading and verifying a website takes seconds.

Screenshot adding a web address

Screenshot for obtaining the verification code for a website

Google Webmaster Central In Detail

Once the website is verified by Google, the important detail can be accessed. In addition to information such as crawl rate, potential broken links or page information and indexing detail, webmasters can perform tasks such as validating their Robots.txt file, notify the search engine of old or outdated web addresses and set the preferred domain (for dealing with canonical url issues).

Screenshot of the initial web page once the site has been verified

I would highly recommend that website owners take a quick look through all of the features available in the diagnostic section and address any issues or errors that are immediately visible. For example, the main landing page will show webmasters what web addresses were not found, if there were errors in server response (URL’s that timed out when attempts were made to access) and unreachable URLs. I specifically want to detail four sections of Webmaster Central that we have found valuable when working with clients (and our own websites).

• The Website Statistics Section
• The Advanced Inbound Link Report
• Sitemap Submissions
• Submitting Reconsideration Requests (not because we continually have to do this :-))

Website Statistics

Google will show webmasters specific detail related to query statistics and textual information from web pages that they have recorded. For query statistics, Google will show webmasters top queries that generated search results related to the applicable website as well as keyword results that were most clicked by searches. This may be beneficial in making determination as to what website messaging is most applicable to keyword searches (from the searcher’s perspective).

The page analysis section of webmaster central provides insight into the actual text that Google finds in external links to the website as well as keywords found in web page content (internally and pointing to the website). Webmasters can interpret this as an opportunity to see how well the website content is written, in association to keyword strategy, and how other webmasters are associated it, based on the text link information found.

Screenshot of the website query statistics page

Google Inbound Link Report

One of the recent upgrades that I have found that makes Google Webmaster Tools more valuable is the addition of the external/internal link report that they now provide. This report provides a much more detailed look at the specific inbound links as recorded by Google, including links to internal pages of the site as well. The link reporting section also provides detail on internal link strategy, which can be valuable when analyzing the frequency and relationship between web page content. An effective internal linking strategy is an important factor in the identification of key information to be found on any given website and helps facilitate a more efficient crawl and indexing of deeper page information.

Screenshot of the inbound links page

Submitting Your Sitemap

The original functionality of this entire interface was for webmasters to be able to submit XML Sitemaps of their websites page information, identifying priority, rate of change and when pages were last updated. It’s no longer a requirements for sitemap submission, but this is an easy way for website owners to alert Google to what pages the search engine should be crawling and how often page information may (or may not) change.

The sitemaps protocol has gained acceptance by four of the major search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask) and specific information on technical specifications can be found at Sitemaps.org. In general, sitemaps use an XML structure for submitted web address information to search engines. These are the XML tags most appropriate for the creation of an XML Sitemap

• <URLSET></URLSET>: Represents the total set of web pages
• <URL></URL>: Represents a single web page
• <LOC></LOC>: Represents the specific web page address (http://www.domain.com/page…)
• <CHANGEFREQ></CHANGEFREQ>: Represents a requested interval of time that the site owner would like Google to check for updated information

I’ve attached a sample XML Sitemap template that can be downloaded and copied for smaller websites. In addition, XML-Sitemaps.com has a free sitemaps generator for websites with less than 500 web addresses, as well as a low cost commercial product for larger websites.

Webmaster Reconsideration Requests

Finally, when website owners register with Google Webmaster Central, there is a link on the right-hand side for submitting reconsideration requests, which can be used in the event that a website has been penalized or banned from Google’s search index. There are few things that are important when accessing the need for submitting a reconsideration request:

• First, make an accurate assessment on how severely your website has been penalized.
• Fix (or be in the active process of fixing) all issues that are causing the penalty.
• When submitting the request, be as thorough and detailed as possible. I would highly recommend (at least offering) submitted any supporting documentation or specific examples of changes.

Google just upgraded their webmaster communication functionality and will actually be notifying some webmasters when they detect errors in pages or potential issues with a website.

2 Screenshots of the reconsideration request process

Final Thoughts and Considerations

In the past year there have been enough significant updates and functionality improvements that it just doesn’t make sense why webmasters, concerned with their visibility in Google search, would not use want to use Google’s Webmaster Tools. The usability of the administrative interface is fairly straight forward and there is enough freely available documentation to assist webmasters in answering more complex questions or issues. In addition, almost all of the data can be exported for purposes of formatting and recording offline.

The only thing that I would caution to users is that it must be understood that the usage and monitoring of a website in Google Webmaster Central is not a direct solution for success in Google search rankings. It’s meant to be a tool to assist webmasters in understanding how and what Google knows and interprets for a website. Website owners still need to work on all facets of website strategy and search engine marketing, to be successful in Google search results, beyond their registration with Webmaster Central. That being said, there is a large volume of potentially valuable information that website owners can realize by using Google’s Webmaster Tools.

Related Resources That You May Find Valuable

• Check when Googlebot last came to your site.
• Google’s blog for webmasters.
• Google’s discussion group for webmasters.
• Webmaster Help Center - Includes FAQ’s related to Google technology, best practices and webmaster tools.
• What’s an SEO? - Does Google recommend working with companies that offer to make my site Google-friendly?

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 19th, 2007 at 10:23 am and is filed under Google, SEM Tools, Search Engine Advertising, Search Engine Optimization, Tutorials, Web Analytics. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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