What is Google Webmaster Tool? How to Use it
Google Webmaster Tools, now known as Google Search Console, is an essential tool provided by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website’s presence in Google Search results. This tool acts as a communication channel with Google, providing insights into how Google crawls, indexes, and optimises the ranking of your website.
By using the Google Console Webmaster tool, you can recognise and resolve issues that may be impacting your website’s visibility and performance in search results. So, let’s explore Google Webmaster Tools and how you can use it to optimise the performance of your website.
Table Of Content
What is Google Webmaster Tools?
How to Use Google Webmaster Tools
Key Features of Google Webmaster Tools
Benefits of Using Google Console Webmaster Tools
Tips for Maximising Google Webmaster Tools
The Bottom Line
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Google Webmaster Tools?
Now called Google Search Console, Google Webmaster Tools is a free service offered by Google that allows you to monitor the performance of your website in Google Search results. With the help of a set of tools and reports provided by Google Search Console Webmaster Tools, you can identify technical issues and enhance your content for better ranking in search engines. Simply put, Google Webmaster Tools acts as a bridge between your website and Google, providing valuable insights to enhance your website’s performance and helping you understand the visibility in search results.
How to Use Google Webmaster Tools
Sign in
First, you need a Google account. Without it, you cannot access the tools. Create your account by visiting https://accounts.google.com/SignUp. Once you have created the account, you are able to access Google Search Console tools by signing in with your Google account.
Add Your Website
In the next step, click on the ‘Add Property’ located in the upper right corner and add your website by choosing either URL-prefix or Domain property type. If you select a URL-prefix property, then you will need to verify ownership for each subdomain or subdirectory.
Verify Your Ownership
Now you will be directed to the page ‘Verify Your Ownership’. As Google offers several methods to verify ownership, such as adding a code snippet, uploading an HTML file, and connecting with Google Analytics, you can select the method that best suits your technical expertise. Once the verification process is done, you will be connected to the Google Webmaster Tools.
Submit Your Sitemap
Provide Google with a sitemap to help it find all pages of your website. In the ‘Sitemaps’ column, submit your sitemap URL. This process ensures that Google can crawl and index your website effectively.
Inspect the Console
After the verification and submission of your sitemap, you can now explore the various tools and reports offered by Google Webmaster Tools. To properly understand the functionality and health of your website, keep yourself up to date with the URL inspection tool, index coverage report, internal & external links, and performance data.
Key Features of Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools has many amazing features, which include:
Search Analytics
It provides detailed insights into your website, including organic clicks the website receives, the search queries used to find the site, and the website’s average position in search results. Additionally, it allows you to examine URLs to see how Google crawls and indexes them.
Manual Action Penalties
Google Webmaster Tools notifies you if your website has been issued any penalties by Google due to policy violations. To get access to this, go to Google Search Console, click on ‘Search Traffic,’ and then select ‘Manual Action Penalties.’ Google reviews websites for policy violations and may penalise them, which can impact rankings.
Sitelinks
Sitelinks allow you to see and monitor the generated links that appear below your website’s main search result on Google. This tool helps you navigate directly to specific pages within the website. Google automatically generates sitelinks, but Webmaster Tools provides a way to view which sitelinks are displayed and even block specific ones. To access sitelinks, go to Google Search Console and select your website. Then, navigate to the ‘Links’ section and click on the ‘Sitelinks’ option. You will get to see a list of your website’s current sitelinks.
Links to Your Site
This section provides insights into which websites link to your website and which pages on your site are most linked to. This process helps you understand your website’s backlink profile and how it is perceived by other websites, which is important for SEO. Additionally, it shows the anchor text used by external sites when linking to your website.
Fetch as Google
This feature allows you to see how Google views and crawls your website. It helps you identify potential technical issues, confirm website accessibility, and submit pages for indexing.
Mobile Usability Report
Because most people use the internet on their phones, it is essential to have a mobile-friendly website. This feature helps identify potential issues that can impact how your website works on mobile phones, such as small font sizes, touch elements too close together, or content wider than the screen, and allows you to resolve them.
Benefits of Using Google Console Webmaster Tools
Google Console Webmaster Tools provides a range of benefits, including:
Detect Crawl Errors
Google Search Console Webmaster Tools detects issues, like 404 errors, server errors, and other problems that prevent Google from crawling and indexing the website properly, and helps resolve these issues.
Spot Indexing Issues
Google Search Console plays an important role in recognising pages that are not indexed or blocked from indexing by search engines. It provides tools to address the issues, ensuring that all relevant content is accessible to search engines.
Monitor Mobile Usability
Google Search Console measures the mobile-friendliness of your website and provides reports and suggestions to enhance the user experience on mobile devices.
Resolve Security Issues
Google Webmaster Tools plays a vital role in notifying website owners about security issues like malware or hacked content and any manual actions taken by Google, allowing quick resolution.
Optimise Backlinks Analysis
Google Search Console reveals information about the websites linking to yours, which is essential for your backlink profile optimisation.
Understanding User Behaviour and Search Queries
The search console provides insights into how users find your website through search queries, including click-through rates and its average presence. Additionally, it analyses the performance of every single page and highlights areas, helping improve user engagement and search visibility.
Sitemap Submission
The tool helps submit the XML sitemap to the Search Console, simplifying effective crawling and indexing of the website.
URL Inspection
The tool allows you to check how Google sees specific URLs, including identifying blocked resources and rendering issues.
Structured Data
It provides tools and guidance to help you implement structured data, which can enhance the appearance of your search results and provide additional information.
HTML Improvements
It highlights issues with title tags and meta descriptions, which are crucial for SEO, helping users optimise to improve click-through rates from search results.
Improved User Experience
By resolving mobile usability issues, Google Search Console helps create a better user experience on mobile devices. Identifying and fixing issues like server errors can reduce page load times, leading to improved user satisfaction.
Free and Easy Access
Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google, accessible to all website owners, regardless of their budget. The tool provides a user-friendly interface for monitoring, maintaining, and troubleshooting the website’s presence in search results and comprehensive documentation to guide users, making it easy to access and utilise its features.
Tips for Maximising Google Webmaster Tools
To maximise Google Console Webmaster Tools, it is essential to understand your website’s performance, find issues and fix them, and optimise content for search engines. So, let’s look at some expert tips that will help maximise Google Webmaster Tools.
- Regularly checking for crawl errors, like 404 errors and server errors, and fixing them promptly can help maintain your website’s visibility in Google search results. These errors prevent Google from crawling and indexing your pages.
- In order to identify issues with title tags, meta descriptions, and other on-page elements, utilise the HTML enhancements report.
- Mobile-first indexing is important for SEO, make sure your website is mobile-friendly.
- It is crucial to find relevant keywords for your target audience and include them naturally in your content, making it authentic and engaging.
- Creating high-quality, informative, and engaging content is essential for SEO. Google Search prioritises content that provides value to users.
- Submission of an XML sitemap helps Google discover and index all pages of your website.
- Analyse your website’s performance in search results. For this, you can track key metrics, including impressions, clicks, and average ranking positions.
- Optimise your landing pages to ensure they are relevant to the user’s search intent and provide a smooth, engaging user experience.
- To maximise your website’s overall performance, monitor your existing backlinks and work on acquiring more high-quality, relevant backlinks.
- Choose your preferred domain, either www or non-www, to ensure consistency in your website.
- Use the ‘Fetch as Google’ tool in Google Search Console to check how Google crawls and renders your pages.
- Use the Data Highlighter in Google Search Console to help Google better understand the content on your pages.
- Link your Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts for deeper insights into your website’s performance.
- Stay updated with Google Webmaster Guidelines and best practices for SEO for maintaining and improving your website’s presence and ranking.
The Bottom Line
Google Webmaster Tools, or Google Search Console, is a free service provided by Google that helps website owners monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot their website’s presence in search results. The tool provides valuable insights into how Google crawls, indexes, and ranks a website, allowing users to identify and resolve technical issues, optimise for search engines, and enhance user experience.
By effectively using Google Search Console Webmaster Tools and understanding the Google Webmaster Guide, you can monitor your website’s performance in search results, understand how Google sees your pages, and make data-driven decisions to improve the site’s online presence and overall success.
We hope you understand the Google Webmaster Guide. Now, it is essential to upskill yourself by enrolling in several in-demand Google certifications and related fields, including Digital Marketing, Data Analytics, and SEO-related programs.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Google Search Console is important for SEO because it provides insights into how Google crawls, indexes, and ranks a website. It helps recognise and fix technical issues that can impact rankings, track keyword performance, and understand user behaviour in search results.
It is recommended to check Google Search Console on a regular basis, preferably at least once a week. This helps you monitor your website’s performance and address any issues promptly.
Google Search Console integrates with other tools, such as Google Analytics and Google Ads, to provide a more comprehensive view of your website’s performance. It can also integrate with Looker Studio for custom reporting and analysis.
Google Webmaster Tools can identify and resolve many technical issues that affect a website’s performance and search engine visibility. These issues include crawl errors, mobile usability problems, indexing issues, security concerns, and server connectivity problems. By using Search Console, you can monitor your website’s overall health, find areas for improvement, and develop its performance in search results.
Using Google Webmaster Tools helps you identify potential technical issues like crawl errors and indexing problems and fix them promptly, improve search traffic, and provide insights into user search queries.
Google Webmaster Tools and Google Webmaster Guide are connected but different concepts. While Google Webmaster Tools is a free service that allows website owners to monitor and manage their website’s presence in search results, the Google Webmaster Guide is a set of guidelines published by Google to help create and maintain websites that are search engine-friendly and follow Google’s best practices.
To use Google Search Console, you need to log in with your Google account. Then, visit the Google Search Console website and add your website by verifying ownership.
The Google Webmaster Guidelines help website owners ensure their websites are suitable for Google Search.
