May 28, 2013

Manage Your Website in Google Webmaster Tools: Part 5



Google Webmaster Tools now known as Google Search Console.


Google Webmaster Tools - A WORST Nightmare? You might feel you are challenging yourself when you get started with Google Webmaster Tools (GWMT) for first time. But there's nothing wrong with you. How are you getting along with GWMT, after being through the series so far? I hope you have got some understanding about it right now. Especially about what is it capable of.

We have been addressing different sorts of settings and tools available in GWMT, that might help you to improve visibility for your site specific content in Google search. In addition, they help you to improve the user experience too. Were you able to make use of them or still they are trying to strangle you?

REMINDER: You are reading the last episode of GWMT series.


Labs


Would you like to know about upcoming features of GWMT? Features listed below Labs are experimental Webmaster features and they can be the ones you can count on. However features under Labs are bound to change in anytime. May be added to GWMT later on or else will be removed permanently with the help of user feedback.

I'm not gonna talk in detail about these features, as I already have older posts related to some features we gonna discuss here. Hence, this post will be shorter than previous posts. But I'm walking you through the features available under Labs right now.


Author Stats


Do you have Google authorship implemented for your authored content? Author stats reflects statistics for your content verified with Google authorship and simply you can find number of impressions and clicks occurred for each URL in Google search.

If you would like to know which content of yours got most attention on Google search and what else searchers were interested in, you can find answers to your questions easily by exploring the statistics. How interesting!


Custom Search


If you don't have a search functionality for your site, Google Custom Search allows you to create your own search engine and implement it on your blog or website for visitors to search within your site.

Search using the preview search bar under Preview heading and you can see yourself how it performs.

If you can recall, we have already discussed about adding a custom search engine via Add a Customized Search Engine for Your Website. But you can start from here and create your custom search engine to search within your site.


Instant Previews


Do you remember Google showing preview of pages listed in Google search results when you hover your mouse pointer over a result?


It was called Instant Preview. Here you can generate snapshots for pages which displayed as instant previews and see if they match with your live pages. It helps you to find if Google is displaying pages incorrectly in instant preview.

But due to low usage of Instant Preview feature, Google dropped it lately and you can find instant previews are no longer available on Google search.


Site Performance


Site performance is another helpful feature which analyzes your site and report loading time for your blog or website.

Unfortunately, it's no longer supported on GWMT. Instead, you can use Google PageSpeed to analyze and find how you can improve overall site performance.


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.






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Debbie Doglady said...

Lots of great educational material here, Mayura. Thank you for always providing such excellent and thorough information! Will study this in depth.

Harleena Singh said...

Hi Mayura,


I agree with Debbie there - you are always bringing forward things that are a learning experience to all of us :)


Ah...one didn't even realize that we had reached the end of the series - they seemed to pass by so quick. I think each part had something wonderful to take away for all of us. This one too, though I don't think I've used any of these options all that much - except for Site performance and author stats, which I feel are both important.


Thanks for sharing these with us. Have a nice week ahead :)

Donna Merrill said...

Hi Mayura,

This series was just wonderful. You have taught us so much and I do appreciate it. If you put this series together, people would gladly pay for it. I would!

I have to get to my author Stats...

You have shown us so much to improve our business and took us through a step-by-step process that made it so easy to do. Still studying it and need to apply, but I will slowly but surely!
I appreciate all you do,
Donna

Lisa Buben said...

Great series Mayura, I love the Google Webmaster tools - even better than analytics. You can learn so much from them. And they finally are working well now and faster than ever.

Corina Ramos said...

This was an awesome series Mayura. I really became more comfortable going in there and checking my stats whereas before I didn't understand what I was looking at and preferred to stay away from it.


Thanks for sharing the link to Google PageSpeed...I was looking for this :)


Can't wait to see what you come up with next :)

Praveen Rajarao said...

Nicely ended Mayura. I am a big fan of your series here, and each one of them was helpful in one way or the other.


Thanks for explaining all the various features in such a detail.

Bren Lee said...

Very nice Mayura! One of these days, I seriously need to look into these tools. If I can find the time ;) Thanks for a great series!

Adrienne said...

That was helpful Mayura. I don't think I've really paid that munch attention to this section. I was always so worried about 404 errors and stuff. Now I know that my Authorship is in place, I did that when it was first released. I am on top with that at least.


Thank you for enlightening me on this particular section. I feel like I finally understand Google Webmaster Tools completely because of you. Thank you so much!


Hope you're enjoying your weekend.


~Adrienne

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Debbie,


You're most welcome dear :) I'm really glad when I hear someone found 'em useful. Well, that's my goal here :)


Hope you can get most out of GWMT for your blog too and build more traffic Debbie :)


Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts about the series :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Harleena,



Ha ha... Now you team up with Debbie? :D lol...


Indeed GWMT has lot of resources that someone who ignores using it might miss out dear. Isn't it? I'm happy for folks who got something out of the series and believe they will perform better on Google without hitting by Pandas and Penguins :)


Now here it's experimental features and you are right - Site performance is helpful indeed to measure responsiveness of your blog, and Author stats reveals stats only for your content and it's helpful especially if a blog has multiple contributors.


Thanks for dropping by and contributing your thoughts about the series and lab features Harleena :)


You have a wonderful weekend :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Donna,



I thought of doing ebook for this series but I find it's way too easy to reach more people via blog :) Further GMWT bound to change too.


Actually my intention was to help bloggers to get most out of the GWMT as I found some ignoring it due to the nature of it. I really appreciate your suggestion there Donna. I'd offer something to pay for when I don't offer it for free ;) That's for sure. You will see ;)


I know you as a person who takes action immediately Donna :) So I'm sure you will master it as you go and learn slowly. Hope you will gain more traffic by getting rid of issues that Google found on your blog Donna :) Keep it optimized.


Thanks for coming by and adding your valuable thoughts dear :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Lisa,


I'm sure you are the one visiting GWMT most frequently and keep up with updates among other bloggers I know dear ;)


Of course, there's a lot of things to learn from and using them effectively can do the trick ;)


Oh yes! I remember you mentioning about the issue which Matt Cutts responded. However seems it's still with mine though Lisa. Hmm... Hope it will be resloved soon.


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


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Corina,


Yey! You know, it makes me really happy when the blog posts helping out someone :) I'm glad you are now using GWMT and I'm sure you will find more helpful clues there as you dig more into it Corina. It's for your own good :)


Google PageSpeed is another helpful tool :) You can measure what's affecting on your blog performance, plus you can find suggestions to speed it up. Hope you enjoy the analysis too :)


Thanks for dropping by and adding your thoughts and experiences related to GWMT Corina :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Sylviane,


Well, I remember once we discussed about authorship ;) It's really helpful to build authority online especially via web search. It can go a long way with trust factor.


Isn't it interesting that you can see stats for your authored content? :) You can check out yourself that what content of yours were most popular on Google :)


Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts about Google Authorship Sylviane :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Praveen,


I'm the lucky one here to have such a nice feedback for the series mate ;)


Glad to hear you could use a help throughout the series and I'm sure you are getting most out of it by now mate. It may take a time, but worth it. Keep your blogs optimized for Google :)


Thanks for coming over and sharing your thoughts about the GWMT series Praveen :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Bren,


I have no doubt that you will fall in love with it when you go through all of 'em dear :) It has a lot to offer for bloggers and you can find clues why some posts not doing well on Google too. Eventually, you can grab more attention and bring more traffic to your place :)


Thanks for coming by and sharing your thoughts Brenda :)


Cheers...

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Adrienne,


Crawling errors pops up everyday. Aren't they? ;) I'm worried about mine too and keep 'em fixing whenever I get them for my blog too. I think that will never let us be free :D lol...


As you have Google authorship implemented, you can see how your posts doing on Google Adrienne :) Interesting stats there. Isn't it?


I'm really glad to hear you feel you almost know everything about it by now Adrienne :) That's what I wanted too. You know what to focus on and where to look at when an issue pops up. Keep optimizing your blog for Google dear :)


Thanks for dropping by and contributing your thoughts about GWMT and this section Adrienne :)


Cheers...

Sue Neal said...

Thanks, Mayura - this has been a really thorough and helpful series - I haven't had time to check out all the features you've mentioned yet, but think I have the main ones covered (for example, I have Google authorship set up on my blog) and I'm now going to bookmark this, along with the others in the series, for future reference. You're a great teacher - thank you very much :)

RobG said...

Hello Mayura, great series and Google surely had made it easy for us to keep things together. Thanks so much for taking the time to share your content,five ***** stars my friend.

Have a great day..

Neamat Tawadrous said...

Hi Mayura,

Very nice and great series Mayura! You provide lots of educational material here and I have to say that I enjoyed all the series and I learned so much. I missed some stuff on the way but I will seriously go back and review it all once more.

Thanks Mayura for a great series and for all the support you provide for bloggers through your blog.



Be Blessed,




Neamat

Angela McCall said...

Wow Mayura...


I made it to your blog! YAY!!!


So many things I have to keep up with this Google thingy. But so far so good, my site on Google Webmaster Tools is doing pretty good. Sitemap is set right. So nothing to worry. And now you suggested other tools there and so I'm gonna go ahead and check them out. Thank you my friend.


Angela

Mayura De Silva said...

Hi Angela,

YEAH, You made it! :)

When it comes to Google search, GWMT is your best resource to check whether you having issues with your site dear. Google affects on your search results, by analyzing what Google finds about your site and you can see most of collected data at GWMT :)

It's really nice to hear you have added Sitemaps and has no errors. Keep eye on 'em regularly so you can find if there's any issues immediately :)

Of course, make use of that tools especially site performance to find what you are missing :) They will help you out, but don't depend on 'em too much. Remember, they are tools :)

Thanks for coming by and contributing your thoughts and experiences on GWMT Angela :)



Cheers...