March 10, 2013

Manage Your Website in Google Webmaster Tools: Part 1



Google Webmaster Tools now known as Google Search Console.


We have been talking about how to get started with Google Webmaster Tools (GWMT) by adding and verifying your site. Some of you may have found it pretty easy task, but still there are folks need a help on it. Anyway after spending few minutes or several hours, I hope you already added your blog or/and website to Google Webmaster Tools by now :) Now it's time to walk through the components available at GWMT and let's get to know each of them.

Naturally, some of you may feel this is a kind of topic dedicated for geeks. It's okay. I had the same feeling too. Hold your thought, stop over-thinking and take your first dive.

For the ease of everyone, I won't talk about everything in a single post and you don't need to change every setting just because it exists on GWMT. So this is gonna be a series and  will be a reference on using it, like I did for FeedBurner once. Shall we start?


Configuration


Mainly configuration section allows you to set up how you need Google search to treat your blog or website when it comes to indexing and delivering your content on organic search. Let's start exploring each setting, one by one.


Settings


Geographic target

If you wanna target your content for a specific geographic location, you can make use of this setting.

For example, if you have a local business resides in Canada, you can select Canada here and your content will be optimized for searches coming from Canada. But if you wanna target your content for everyone, you can leave it as it is.

However if your site has a country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) such as .uk, .lk, .in, .au, Google will set the geographic target automatically. This option will be available only if your site has Top-Level Domains such as .com, .net, .info etc.


Preferred domain

Preferred domain setting is available only if you own the root domain. Here you can select which domain name you need to show in search results.


I've selected the URL with www as you see above. So all my blog URLs indexed by Google starts with www.mayuar4ever.com. If I select non-www version, they will start with mayura4ever.com.

www ~ www.mayura4ever.com/2013/03/google-webmaster-tools.html

non-www ~ mayura4ever.com/2013/03/google-webmaster-tools.html

Further you can set Don't set a preferred domain option too. But that would cause inconsistencies. If Google crawls www version of one page in your site and next time non-www version, your Google search results shows mix of domain names.

Take a look at list of URLs below and stick to that option if you would like to display URLs that way in search results.


I'd recommend you to select www or non-www version to improve consistency when it comes to Google search results.


Crawl rate

Here you can change the crawling rate of Googlebots. Generally, it means that you can change how many requests Google should send when they crawling your site.

If you set higher crawl rate which means Google send more requests at a time. It's good, isn't it? :) But it might hurt your server bandwidth and when crawling happens, you will experience sluggishness when viewing your site. You don't wanna give a bad impression about your site for readers, right?

This setting should be used only if you were advised to change the crawl rate by an expert. Else it's best to let Google determine crawl rate, by specifying Let Google optimize for my site option which is default option.


This option is active only for the your non-www version or naked domain only. Else you will see following message,

"Your site has been assigned special crawl rate settings. You will not be able to change the crawl rate."

Did you remember that I've recommended to submit both versions of your site to Google Webmaster Tools in previous post? Now you just found one reason for that.



Sitelinks


Have you seen some special links under a site in Google search results? They are called sitelinks.


Google scans the structure of a site and displays sitelinks if they are useful for the searchers to navigate through, with the concern of user query. Else Google might display popular pages. However Google won't assure sitelinks for every site yet.

The setting here is useful if you see sitelinks under your site in search results. It's to remove any sitelinks displayed if you feel it's inappropriate or not useful there.


If the sitelink is displayed under your homepage, you can enter the URL of the page directly in demote field and click Demote.

Else if the site link is displayed for another page except for homepage, you have to specify that link in addition to the sitelink that needs to be removed too.



URL Parameters


URL parameters is another setting that you need to look into only if you have issues with parameters or know how they works.

Let's see what are these URL parameters. You will able to see URL parameters everyday if you take a closer look at URLs appears on your web browser's address bar.

Here's an URL for one of my posts,


But for different purposes, it could have URL parameters appended as below,


Though they have parameters appended, they lead to the same content. But Google may not understand as URLs are not alike. Therefore possibly Google might index those URLs with parameters while having original URL indexed. So what is now? Duplication.

It's not the complete story. On some blogs and websites, it can be totally a different scenario where different parameters will lead to different content pages. It depends on the URL structure that site follows.

URL parameters page allows users to define how Google should react to different URL parameters. It shows the parameters identified and how they were being treated. You can either edit current settings or add new parameters that should be listed in there.



Change of Address


This gonna help you if you have moved to a new domain. When you move to a new domain, Google will take time to index pages on the new domain and remove previously indexed URLs from old domain. It won't take day or two, but could be weeks and months for the whole process.

Instead, letting Google to be smart and do it for you, you can be smart enough and show Google that from where you have moved to the new domain.

You need to make use of this setting while being in your old domain added in Google Webmaster Tools. Make sure,

● You have added and verified your new domain in Google Webmaster Tools.

● Your content is moved to new domain.

● URLs of the old domain redirects site visitors to the new domain automatically using permanent or 301 redirects.

Select the new domain you have moved to and submit to Google.


Once Google received the request, Google will update the search index with URLs in new domain instead of crawling old domain. It will reflect your new domain and its URLs quickly in Google search results.



Users


If you are the one who added and verified your site in Google Webmaster Tools, you will be considered as the site owner. Further you can add more users to your account if you need to let another user to manage your site's presence in Google search. That's where this section gonna be useful. You can add or remove users here.

There is two types of users, Full and Restricted. To understand what are they capable of take a look at their permissions.

Just click Add a New User button and you can send an invitation to a new user using his/her email address. Further you can set the permission level for that user too.


If you need to manage site owners, click Manage site owners link to proceed.



Associates


Associates enable site owners to add users who act on behalf of the site with Google products or services. Associates can't view data or manage Google Webmaster Tools settings, but represent your site.

Currently it allows to connect a YouTube channel created by someone else for your site or publish applications and extensions to the Chrome Web Store on behalf of your site.


It will be useful if your site has multiple YouTube channels under different users or the official channel is managed by another user. Connecting these channels here help Google to understand the multiple online presence of your site. Same goes for Chrome Web Store, as the apps and extensions linked to your site.

We can predict that Google will enable more products and services here to understand the multiple presence of your brand or business online.


Enjoy :-)




Awesome! Thanks for coming by and taking your time to read this post :) I hope you have learnt something today. Now you can share it with your friends and I'd love to hear from you too.






Related Posts and Categories


Category, , , , , ,





Comments

* Make sure your comment is genuine and comply with our commenting guidelines.

* Review your email and reply notification settings to receive replies via email.


Harleena Singh said...

Awesome Mayura!

Honestly speaking, there are a few points I never explored about the Google Webmaster tools as they weren't really related to what I wanted to know, or shall we say, I really didn't know about it till now!

Yes, most of the things you mentioned I knew and am doing likewise, but things like crawl rate is something I didn't think of exploring as I didn't know much about it. I am so glad you mentioned it here, and let me go and give things a look there, as I've seen a few changes when I visit that though never really understand what it is really. So, thanks for explaining things so well here.



I do look forward to the other series about these tools as my other doubts will be cleared as well. :) Thanks for sharing these with us. Happy weekend :)

PibblesNMe said...

Great info to know Mayura! I don't use Google Webmaster tools. I tried before when I was on blogger and got confused. O.o So I opted to not use it on wordpress. This is a great series you've started that I'll gladly share and bookmark for when I later decided to jump into GW tools. :)

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Harleena,

You know, mostly we just interested in what applies for us and rest is ignored until we need 'em later on. That's natural :) However when I work on a client website I managed to explore all of 'em.

Crawl rate is determined by Google over time by analyzing frequency of your content updates Harleena :) You can limit the rate if you or your readers experiencing issues on viewing your blog such as pages not loading or slower. Google's requests may interrupting the performance of your site ;)

I hope bloggers and webmasters get most out of GWMT :)

Thanks for coming and contributing your thoughts and views on Google Webmaster Tools Harleena :)

You have a successful week dear :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Brenda,


Woopies... You don't wanna obsess with all, but GWMT will help you find errors on your site dear :)


Sometimes even our site's functions properly, Google may have hard time crawling or let you know if your sites infected with malware too. We care security the most, right? :) I hope this series will get you started dear.


Thanks for coming over and adding your experiences with GWMT Brenda :)


Cheers...

Carolyn Nicander Mohr said...

Wow, Mayura, this is fantastic! Google Webmaster Tools is such a valuable, free service, but it can be confusing. You have done an excellent job of explaining these tools.


I have often wondered about choosing to prefer www. or no www. Can you explain which one we should choose and why? I know Google considers www.website.com and website.com as two different sites but I don't know which I should choose.

Praveen Rajarao said...

Mayura - Gogle Webmaster tool has so many features that needs so much to go through and understand and even more time to actually implement it and notice it take effect :-)

I never looked at the Demote option, and the way you have explained it helped a lot. I did notice that for my techivy website, i do not see any pages coming up though when I google it. Not sure why.

These features are very nice to know and am looking forward to your sequels now :-)

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Carolyn,

Www and non-www versions are technically different and adding both versions to GWMT is better as some options are only available at non-www version :)

When it comes to what you need Google to show in search results, I'd say select what you are already using on your site dear :)

I mean, if your URLs starts with www.wonderoftech.com, then go for it. Else you have placed your content on the naked domain, you can go with wonderoftech.com as the preferred domain.

It's the preference on what you need Google to show in search results but not affecting on rankings. First time I was confused what to go with too :)

You can select the www or non-www option to be consistent on Google search. But sometimes you need to think few steps ahead.

If someone sees your URL in search as wonderoftech.com/post but when he lands on your site, he sees www.wonderoftech.com/post. Something strange? ;) But he landed on the right page.

Mmm... How about your URL structure displaying at Bing and Yahoo search results? Now you would like to show one structure everywhere including address bar. Wouldn't you? :)

However Google crawls default URL structure if you haven't made the choice yet at GWMT dear :) If you select the other version (wonderoftech.com), it will take few weeks to months of time to re-crawl and change URL structure of all posts as you specified.

See, after all, it's your preference Carolyn ;) Just need to consider multiple aspects and make sure you are ready for it.

Hope it helps on selecting what to go with dear :)

Thanks for coming by and contributing your thoughts on GWMAT Carolyn :) AND for the very good question as it will help more folks on decision making.

Cheers...

Adrienne Smith said...

People are going to love you for this Mayura!


I know that when I first signed up I found this to be the most confusing service ever. It seemed like it took me months to learn how this works but since I don't go into the set up portion of it anymore I soon forget all the steps you have to take to set up a new site.


I have helped a few other people and I often check my broken links here as well. I know a few of my readers who will really appreciate reading this one.


Thank you so much for sharing this information and since this is part 1 I know there will be much more information to come. I'll be sure to check back as well because I have a feeling I can still learn more about this.


~Adrienne

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Praveen,

Exactly mate :) Being a FREE service, it is wonderful enough with such capabilities and webmasters truly find it beneficial. Needless to say that it takes time but right choice matters :)



Me neither mate :) I had some sitelinks under my blog too but they are gone by now. Not sure what 'causing the change mate, but I haven't seen it for lot of sites either. For popular sites, sitelinks are always available. May be Google still working on it :)


Thanks for coming over and adding your views and experiences with GWMT Praveen :)



Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Adrienne,


Ha ha... I'm there with you dear :) The day I signed in first time, I had no idea what it was and wondering what to do. Actually it takes time to be familiar and when you do, you gotta keep up with it :)


Yeah, GWMT is a great way to review broken links detected by Google and why not, site errors too ;)


I'm really glad if this post can answer some questions of your readers too dear :)


Of course Adrienne :) More to cover on GWMT and stay tune in. Hope the series will help folks get understanding about how to work with 'em.


Thanks for coming and contributing your thoughts and experiences to the conversation Adrienne :)


Cheers...

JB said...

Great tutorial and more to come! Awesome.
GWMT is indeed a great tool to influence they way Google indexes your site. It needs some tampering with the settings on there and some should be used with caution - but you explained all that.
Can't wait to see the next one in this series, Mr. Google!

Sylviane Nuccio said...

Wow, so much stuff Mayura. I bet you were thinking about me when you mentioned that some people still didn't get it.


I am going to have to go over this in detail and that's a long juicy one with so much information.


By the way, I added my personal developmental blog as you told me. See if Google can finally show this site somewhere :)


Thank you for this great piece of information.

Angela McCall said...

What if you didn't enter your site in the Webmaster Tools?


Coz I tried doing this and I failed. However, if I enter my domain in search I can find it in Google search. Do I really have to do this?


Angela

Angela McCall said...

so weird my avatar here not showing :(

Sapna said...

HI Mayura,


Great post as always!


When I started I was not aware of Google webmaster, analytics and adsense. I really picked up one by one and that was through hard way.


It has to be the way, you have explained the things. While going though your course I just checked my sitelinks they are no more there. I really don't know how they have disappeared.Amazing. I need to explore that now.

Thanks for this great share.You rock with your tech university.

Sapna

Lisa Buben said...

Mayura, on the crawl rate are you recommending to set it yourself? In the example I see you have it checked off, curious about that. Great post - thanks!

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Jan,

Absolutely, some settings should be used with caution mate :)


You remind me of some questions I've got from a blogger experiencing issues in Google search after using GWMT. So I wanted to mention what to use and what not to without any knowledge :) First off, we need to know what's safe, right?



Thanks for coming by and adding your views and thoughts to the conversation Jan :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Sylviane,

lol :D I had no idea about GWMT and used to ignore dear. Honestly, I had a blogger in mind who sent me a question saying he's not techy enough for all these. You did set up authorship alone and how come you are not a techie? ;)

I hope it will help you on configuring your sites on GWMT Sylviane :) I believe it's quite understandable, but questions are always welcome.



I've been to your profile today just to see if they were added already and noticed 'em :) You have made it. It will take some time for Google to re-crawl and fetch the author information dear.


Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts on the topic Sylviane :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Angela,


Google crawls and indexes your blog with no prior invitations dear :) That's why you can see search results related to your blog.


GWMT is a place where it gives more control to bloggers and webmasters, and most importantly you can find errors that Google experiencing on your site.



Oops... Where did it go wrong? Couldn't verify your site? :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Probably you are using a new email address when commenting Angela :) If so, you need to set up Gravatar for your new email.


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Sapna,


Cool... It may take time but will be worthy for sure dear :) I had no clue about GWMT when I start off too.


Sitelinks are just unpredictable right now dear :) Sometimes you find sitelinks there, but another day it's just gone. I've seen 'em always with popular sites. May be Google still rolling out for everyone or experimenting with it.


However it's not easy to determine what to show up just depending on the popularity :) Mmm... Will keep eye on it.


Thanks for coming over and adding your thoughts and experiences to the conversation Sapna :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Lisa,

You are indeed a fan of GWMT and know how to use it all :)

Glad you asked it Lisa. I've just used the example to show what users will see after switching to other option dear :)

You can stick to recommended option, but if you are experiencing issues with your site such as receiving 503 errors constantly, it can be Googlebots interfering with HTTP requests. Now you will need to have it checked off :)



Thanks for coming by and commenting Lisa :)


Cheers...

Tim Bonner said...

Hey Mayura

This is great stuff. I struggle to understand certain aspects of GWMT a lot of the time.

Currently I don't have a preferred domain set. I wasn't sure whether to or not. Does it make a real difference to SEO? Do you have a 301 redirect set up to redirect from your non-preferred domain?



Sorry for all the questions!

Rob G said...

Hello Mayura, I've heard about Google webmaster tools but never gave it much of a chance. After reading this article I may give it a try to see how it performs.


Most of the time Google provides us with some very help tools so that we may get the best results form our websites.


Thanks so much for a great article my friend. Always a pleasure. Yea I've been so busy but I'm back LOL

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Tim,

You're always welcome mate. I'm glad you asked questions and isn't it how we figure out stuff? ;)

Yeah mate :) I have 301 redirects set up as sometimes folks may enter the blog address without typing www unless they have bookmarked. It's always advised to do so too :)

Actually it doesn't have a SEO benefit Tim :) It's about the consistency of URLs displayed in Google search results and in case Google crawls a URL from your non-preferred domain, Google will display the URL as it's coming from your preferred domain.

Actually, Carolyn asked a similar question too and I hope you will find the reply helpful there :) If you got questions, please feel free to shoot here Tim. We both can learn ;)

Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts on the topic mate :) Glad you asked the question as it might help others stop by here too.


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Rob,

You'd love it when you get to know mate :) Actually GWMT is an important tool for bloggers and webmasters. But it can be confusing at start.



As we are keen about search engine traffic especially from Google, we can find out how we are doing at Google search and of course we can take control of some settings :)


I hope you will give it a try and find out how helpful it is for you mate :) Then you won't give it up.


lol :D Seem like everyone's busy these days. Keep rockin' Rob :)


Thanks for coming by and contributing your thoughts about GWMT mate :)


Cheers...

Neamat Tawadrous said...

Hi Mayura,

Great Post Mayura as always.

I think I was not patient with the steps. I tried to follow the steps in your last post and something stopped me and I discontinued. I need to go back and add my site and follow all the steps all over again. If something stopped me I will have to reach out to you my friend this time.

Thanks Mayura for all the tutorials and the hard work you put into them to share it all with us. You are amazing.

Be Blessed,

Neamat

Corina Ramos said...

I always enjoy reading your post because I learn something all the time :). I had taken some time the other day when I read your last post and recognized what you were explaining, now I can back to check my crawl rate :)

It's still a little confusing but I know I can come here and find some help :) Thank you for putting this together Mayura. Hope things are well.

Maneesha said...

Hello Mayura,

your this article is really appreciable in my eyes. Really lot of people don't know how to use/mange website in Google webmaste tool. This article can teach for manage a website in easy way.

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Neamat,

Anytime dear :) I think the verification is the one that would be confusing a bit. If you can't go with verification options offered by GWMT, a plugin will do it for you. Ah... You can check the reply for Donna's comment in that post if you are using Yoast plugin :)



I hope you can verify it successfully and follow with the other posts of the series dear :)


Thanks for coming by and sharing your comment on this topic Neamat :) I really appreciate your compliments as that's what inspires me all the time.


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Corina,

I'm glad to hear you have taken the initial actions and enjoying 'em dear :)


I get it as it took me several weeks to know what it really is. Don't let confusion surpass you, as you can get over with it when you engage more. If you have any details that are unclear, you can reach here and ask anytime dear :)



Well, you just need to go with default settings unless it really needs a change :)


Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts and experience with GWMT Corina :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Maneesha,


Welcome to Mayura4Ever dear :)


Glad to hear you found it helpful :) I hope this series of posts will help bloggers and webmasters to start with GWMT and aware of what they need to focus on :)


Actually to learn what it is all about. I'm trying to be simple as I can for everyone to make use of 'em :)


Thanks for coming by and contributing your thoughts to the conversation Maneesha :)


Cheers...

Donna Merrill said...

Hi Mayura,
OK I'm totally confused. I just cannot wrap this around my head. Maybe you were thinking of me when you started the blog by saying some people will find this confusing he he!


I couldn't even apply the last post, even though it seemed easy. However, I do see the importance of this. Can I hire you to do this? I'm lost :(
Donna

Sue Neal said...

Thanks for this, Mayura - apart from setting my preferred domain I've left all the other settings as default for now.

It's a bit technical for me, but I do feel I have a better understanding having read this article and your step-by-step instructions are very easy to follow - you're a good teacher!

Hope you're having a great weekend,

Sue

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Donna,



lol :D No... I had someone else in my mind though. Of course you can do and learn slowly dear :) You can do it while being in the safe zone.


Well, you gotta start with previous one though. If you got any questions, reach me here.


We can see about hiring later :D lol... I'm sure you will do it all alone before that.


Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts about this post Donna :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Sue,

Oh YEAH... I'm sure that would feel technical but give it some time dear. You will get to know better :) I couldn't made it in few days either.

You got it. Preferred domain is the only one you need most attention here and other settings will need to alter only if you needed :)

You can have a general idea about other settings to use as and when you need 'em. Hmm... When you need 'em ;)

Thanks for coming over and contributing your thoughts after trying out GWMT Sue :)



Hope you are havin' a GREAT weekend too :)


Cheers...

Sue Price said...

Hi Mayura, I am like Donna as I think you know and do not do too well at technical stuff. I always love the way you explain these things in steps. I think even I could do this.

Have a great weekend.

Sue

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Sue,


Well, I know dear :) You have read how Donna made it in part 2, right? ;)


So I think it's about taking action and once you did it, you will know it's your mind keeping away from doing it. Don't you agree? ;)

I hope you will follow and get to know about settings better Sue :) Actually, one setting to change here and others to just for learning purpose.


Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts and views on this post Sue :)


Cheers...

Carolyn Nicander Mohr said...

Thanks so much for your help with this, Mayura. I have wondered about this for a long time.

Carolyn Nicander Mohr said...

Okay, Mayura, I tried to do this but I received an error message that I need to verify http://wonderoftech.com. Part of the process of setting a preferred domain is to verify that you own http://wonderoftech.com/. Please verify http://wonderoftech.com/.


How do I do that? I've verified my www. site name so what's different?

Mayura De Silva said...

You're welcome Carolyn :) I'm glad to help you out with it dear.

I've had no idea though I watch videos about it in first days and took some time for me to figure it out too :)

Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hey Carolyn,

Hope I'm not too late :)

Well, you gotta verify non-www version in GWMT in order to select preferred domain.

You know, www and non-www versions are technically different though they appears to be in the same domain. Things can be different sometimes, as both can host two different sites in both URLs.

Actually www version is a subdomain dear. Non-www version is what really matters and called as the ROOT domain :)

Setting preferred domain setting impact on other version, as when Google crawls URLs from both versions, it merges 'em into preferred version Carolyn :)

Generally, the one who has access to root domain considered as the owner where owner can allow someone else to host on www version. If someone else hosted on your www version, you don't wanna allow that person to set preferred domain which affects on non-www version. Would you? ;) That's why Google asks for ownership.

In your case, as both URLs pointed to the same blog, you won't need to follow all the verification steps again unless you removed previous verification tag or page.

Just go ahead and add non-www version to GWMT. You will find it's already verified :) Well, if verification tag is already there.

Hope it helps and understandable dear :) Let me know if not, 'cause I'm typing in a hurry :D lol...

Cheers...

Carolyn Nicander Mohr said...

That was perfect, thanks, Mayura. I just verified my site without the www and it worked the first time. Yea!


Thanks as always for your wonderful help, Mayura!

Mayura De Silva said...

Woohoo... Awesome Carolyn ;)

You're welcome dear... Enjoy GWMT :)

Cheers...

Dee Ann Rice said...

Mayura,


I have never really used Google Webmaster Tools but am interested in finding out how to use them. I think it is something that I just did not learn because it looked complicated. Your explanation is great and I am understanding it now.


Thanks.


Dee Ann

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Ann,


Now that will lead you to some wonderful statistics and opportunities dear :)


You would love to know how your site doing on Google, no? :) It's all about your site and what you need to know. I had no idea about some facts until I come across GWMT and it will be a learning process for you once you get started :)

Why not, go ahead and get started Ann :) I'm sure you will be glad you did.

If you have any questions, you are always welcome here :)


Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts Ann :)


Cheers...

Barry Wells said...

Hi Mayura,


Great series mate, I'm just going through it now. I'm having trouble with Webmaster tools as when I tried preferred domain I was told I needed to verify the site.... I done that over a year ago and have checked that the file is still in pace, which it is.


I've gone through users and made sure that I'm verified so there's an error there somewhere.


Other than that I think I've covered this section of the series :)


I'm also having trouble with Googlebots not being able to access my site. When I transferred to HostGator I started using Attracta as it was free SEO tools. Who tell me that because I use them it's normal for the googlebots not to access my site. Google say it's down to my robots.txt file but they're not blocked there at all.


Your thoughts?


Barry

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Barry,

Sorry about being late to reply mate.

Really glad to hear you have found the series helpful Barry :) Well, in order to select the preferred domain you need to verify both of your www and non-www versions to tell Google that you own both domains.

As you already verified one version, just go ahead with other version and click verify mate :) You will be verified automatically as the verification file is already there. Nothing else to do with that :)

Mmm... Did you try submitting your sitemaps to GWMT Barry? :) That's the best way to tell Google to crawl all your URLs and you can see if Google not crawling any pages on your blog mate. You can find more information in Part 4 of the series and if you find issues were not resolved, just let me know :)



However first select your preferred domain before you submit the sitemaps Barry :)


Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts and experiences while following the series mate :)


Cheers...

Barry Wells said...

No worries on the delay in replying Mayura, I understand better than most how off line activities can get in our way :)


Thanks for the tip on verifying both with and without www. that's now done and approved :)


I've been and submitted a sitemap manually and got just one error, which is an extra page leading to Treble Blog Traffic, so that's acceptable as it's another site ;)


Still having issues with Googlebots (and Bing) not being able to access site, which I think is due to Attracta... Who are no help at all.


I'll read your other replies Mayura and check part 4 again.


Thanks mate...


Did you see you got a special mention in my last post?
Barry

Mayura De Silva said...

I know mate :) You know it by your own experience.


Now that's what I was talking about Barry. Got 'em all verified and you are doing great there :)


Oh, that's alright as it's something you aware of Barry. Hmm... I've been through your site and source code as you messaged me about this issues and I believe Attracta getting in there as it writes robots.txt with their version of sitemap.


You don't need to worry 'cause there's some ways we can figure that out which I've mentioned in the reply on Facebook and even we can write robots.txt manually if everything fails mate.

Did you find Attracta has more features than Yoast? :)


AH... As you already know I've been to your post and I'm replying late here :D

Thanks again for mention and all the kind words at your place Barry :)


Cheers...