Google Webmaster Tools
is a free service that provides a wealth of information directly from Google.
Once you have verified a site with Google, they’ll give you access to all sorts
of information.
It
allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of
their websites. It has tools that let the webmasters:-
- Submit and check a sitemap.
- Check and set the crawl rate, and view statistics about how Googlebot accesses a particular site.
- Generate and check a robots.txt file. It also helps to discover pages that are blocked in robots.txt by chance.
- List internal and external pages that link to the site.
- Get a list of broken links for the site.
- See what keyword searches on Google led to the site being listed in the SERPs, and the click through rates of such listings.
- View statistics about how Google indexes the site, and if it found any errors while doing it.
- Set a preferred domain (e.g. prefer example.com over www.example.com or vice versa), which determines how the site URL is displayed in SERPs.
- Highlight to Google Search elements of structured data which are used to enrich search hit entries (released in December 2012 as Google Highlighter).
- Receive notifications from Google for manual penalties.
How
to set up GWT in seven easy steps, from creating an
account to adding and deleting users and associating your Google Analytics.
Step
1 – Google Account
To set up Google
Webmaster Tools you will need to register for a Google account. If you have
access to any of their other products such as Analytics, Gmail or Google Places
then you will already have an account.
If you don’t have an
account, you can associate your work email address with a Google account to
take advantage of their products by clicking here.
Step
2 – Register for Google Webmaster Tools
Visit Google Webmaster Tools, and
register for a Google Webmaster Tools Account, and sign in.
Step
3 – Add Website URL
Once signed in, you’ll
be able to add your website address by clicking on the “Add a
Site” button, typing the address and clicking “Continue”. When
entering your domain, you can either add the top level domain (www.example.com)
or you are able to add folders if you would like to target a specific area of
the site. This is particularly useful if your site is split into regions or
country codes and to target different international markets
(www.example.com/folder1/folder2/).
Once you have clicked
“Continue”, you will automatically be taken to the verification screen to
choose your verification method.
Step
4 – Verify Website
GWT provides you with
four different methods of validating your website, including uploading an HTML
to the root server, adding a meta tag to the homepage, linking to Google Analytics and
using DNS. Choose the one that is most suitable to your needs.
Upload
HTML File to Server
GWT can provide you
with a blank HTML file with a specific code attached to it that associates with
your account. You can easily download this by clicking the link “this HTML
verification file”. Once you have downloaded this file, you need to upload it
directly to the root file of your server then click “Verify”to confirm the
placement has been made. Once verification has been made, you will start to see
some data population and you can move on to step 6.
If you need to verify
at a later date then you can move on to Step 5 when you are ready to verify the
account.
Add
a Meta Tag
GWT provides you with a
meta tag that needs to be added to the <head> tag as an alternative
method to adding the HTML file to the website. This meta tag just needs to be
copied from GWT and added to the homepage of the chosen website. Once this has
been implemented, click the“Verify” button to start catching data (move to
step 6). If you are not in a position to verify the account, click “Not
Now” and come back to Step 5 when you are ready.
Link
to Google Analytics Account
GWT provides you with an
easier way of verifying your site if you use Google Analytics through the same
Google Account that you have set up. If you are using two different accounts,
for GWT and Google Analytics, then this option will not work. SEOptimise
recommend that you use the same account for all Google products and if it’s a
business account, create a central account for the entire business. To verify
the Google Analytics account, click “Verify”. Once verified move on to
Step 6.
Add
DNS Records to your Domain
This option is for
those who can sign in to a domain registrar or hosting provider and add a new
DNS record. When you choose from the drop down menu (as indicated below), GWT
provides instructions. After following the instructions, you need to verify
that this has been completed correctly by clicking
the “Verify” button. If this works, move on to Step 6; otherwise
repeat the instructions or choose another method of verification.
Step
5 – How to Verify Once Method has been Implemented
If you were unable to
verify at the time of setting up GWT, then you can verify it at a later date.
When logging in to GWT, you will be presented with the websites that you have
set up and a link to “Verify the Site” underneath the Manage heading. Click the
“Verify this Site” link.
You will be presented
with a similar screen as discussed in Step 4, where you need to choose your
validation method. The validation method that you choose on this occasion needs
to be the same as what you had originally chosen when setting up GWT.
Example: If
you had originally chosen to add a HTML file to the root, then you need to
reselect the HTML file verification.
Step
6 – Manage Users
GWT allows the
administrator of the account to provide access to multiple users by adding them
to the Verification Details via the “Manage” link as you log in to
the tool.
Once you have clicked
the “Manage” link, you will be directed through to the Verification
Details page, where you will be allowed to add/edit/delete the users who have
access to the data via their own Google account.
To add a new user,
click the “Add an owner” button and enter their email address. This will only
work for users who have a registered Google Account, so if they do not
currently have one please refer them to step 1.
If you would like to
remove any users who have been previously added then just click the “Unverify”
link.
Step
7 – Associate Google Webmaster Tools with Google Analytics
If you use Google
Analytics to track your website, then GWT allows you to import some data into
the Google Webmaster Tools interface to add extra value to your data. This
option will only be available if your Google Analytics account is associated
with the same account that GWT is set up on. To add Google Analytics to your
profile, click “Manage” and select “Google Analytics Profile”.
After you
select “Google Analytics Profile”, you will be redirected to the
Google Analytics page within GWT, where you can select the Google Analytics
account/profile that is relevant to the website. Using the tick box, select the
profile relevant to your account and click the save button; this will begin to
insert data direct from your analytics account. If you haven’t got Google
Analytics but would like to create an account, click “Create Google
Analytics Account”.
So if you followed all
the steps correctly you should now have fully installed Google Webmaster Tools
account that will have data about your website populating the dashboards soon.
Conclusion
Google webmaster tools
is a great tool with lots of useful information about your website. Even if you
are not a professional SEO, you can still dig into webmaster tools and find out
what Google knows about your website, identify potential problems and improve
your Google presence.
