Google Webmaster Tools

By,
Chaitali

The Google Webmaster Tools is a web interface provided by Google  for free its completely free of charge. It is basically used by webmasters to check their website indexing and optimize the overall website ranking in the google search engines. So such a check is essential for the Search Engine Optimization(SEO) of every site and it is the only proven way to position better in web searches.

 The Google Webmaster Tools provides the following very useful services for your website:

1.Submit and check the sitemap for your website.

2.Adjust the crawl rate of the Google bots for your website and view the statistics.

3.Generate and check the robots.txt file for your website.

4.Next list the internal and external pages that link to your website.

5.Now check what keyword searches led the site to being displayed in the Google search engine results pages and click-through rates for them.

6.You can also check statistics about how Google has indexed your website and whether it has found any issues while doing so.

7.Set a preferred domain name (e.g. yourdomain.com over www.yourdomain.com or vice versa) which will determine how the site URL will be displayed in search engine results pages.

                  The Google Webmaster Tools is a very popular solution for your site and it is highly recomended by webmasters. This tool will help you with the Search Engine Ranking Optimization of your website. You will be able to use it for a frequent analysis and for checking the statistics of your website. It  gives you precise information how your website is indexed by Google and provides you with deep insights in case of an issue.

                  In order to use the Webmaster Tools for your website you need to confirm that you are the owner of the website and have full access to it. The process is absolutely automated and all you need to do is place a given text file in the webroot directory for your website.

You can use Webmaster Tools to submit an XML sitemap for your website. Thus providing information about all pages on the website and making it easier and faster for Google bots to crawl and index it. You will also see detailed information related to the indexing of your website.

                  Google Webmaster Tools provide a full list of the search phrases that result in your web site being displayed on the search engine results pages. You will also receive full information about a internal and external links of your site, keywords, errors and missing pages. Such information is of utter importance when you want to better optimize your website and have it displayed higher in the search engine results.

To start using Webmaster Tools, First you should create a new account Or you can also use an existing one if you already have a Google account). Visit the Google Webmaster Tools web page:

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/

You will be asked to log in or create a new account. The registration process is simple and you should not experience any troubles.

                     Once logged in with your Google account to the Google Webmaster Tools interface you should start by adding your website. To do so click on the Add a Site button. A pop-up will appear and you will be prompted to enter your website domain name. Once you have done it you will see your newly-added website under the sites menu.

The next step is to verify you are the owner of the website. This purpose click the Verify this site link. The easiest way to verify the site is by uploading an HTML file.

Choose this option from the Verification Method drop-down menu and follow the verification steps:

1.First of all click the Download verification file link and save the file to your local computer.

2.Now connect to your hosting account via an FTP Client or using cPanel -> File manager and upload the downloaded file under the webroot directory (most commonly public_html) for your domain name.

3.Next verify that the file is successfully uploaded by visiting the proposed link.

4.Finally click the verify button.

You will be redirected to the Google Webmaster Tools dashboard for the website you have just verified.

The most important details about your site and its search engine rankings that can monitor through Google Webmaster Tools:

•Top search queries

This area will display the top queries that lead to your website being displayed in the search engine results. You can use those in order to determine whether your website is returned for the appropriate search engine phrases and keywords.

•Crawl errors

You will find various errors that Google bots encountered while trying to crawl your website.As well as each category will link to a page with more detailed information. Thus you can review and rectify the issues.

•Links to your site

This area will display links that lead to your website.Linking also includes a link to an article where you can find more information why those statistics might differ compared to another tools.

•Keywords

The Keywords section will display the top keywords associated with your website. This is very important information for your website and how it is displayed in the search engine results pages.

•Sitemaps

Google Webmaster Tools will allow you to upload a sitemap for your website.

The options provided to webmasters in the Google Webmaster Tools' left side menu.How exactly you can achieve certain functionality:

•If you want to have your domain name displayed in the search engine results with or without the www prefix you can adjust those settings via Site configuration -> Settings -> Preferred domain. This options will allow you to set a preferred domain name and have URLs displayed as either www.yourdomain.com or yourdomain.com. 

•Under the Your site on the web area you will find various detailed information regarding your web site.

•A very important feature of the Google Webmaster Tools is the Diagnostics section. Basically it will point out what is wrong with your website considering crawl statistics and what errors the search bots have encountered while crawling your website.This will propose you how to improve the indexing through HTML suggestions.So basically its very important to keep crawling errors to minimum and follow the provided HTML suggestions if you want to be ranked well in the Google web searches.