A Google web-based console that provides additional insight into a registered website's search performance and potential issues.
149
votes
18answers
21k views
The Sitemap Paradox
We use a sitemap on Stack Overflow, but I have mixed feelings about it.
Web crawlers usually discover pages from links within the site and from other sites. Sitemaps supplement this data to allow ...
53
votes
4answers
28k views
Are there any clear indicators that my sitemap file is beneficial?
I have recently created a sitemap.xml file and uploaded it to my Google Webmasters Tools account. Google didn't report any issues or errors with the uploaded sitemap of my site.
Now my question is:
...
29
votes
6answers
2k views
How long should my Html Page Title Really be?
How long should my text within my <title></title> tags really be? I know Google cuts it off at some point but when?
When I used IIS7's SEO Toolkit 1.0 I get error stating my title ...
21
votes
1answer
2k views
How exactly is Google Webmaster Tools measuring “Site Performance”?
I've been working for two months now on improving our response time (mainly server side) on a new forum (a brand new product on a technical point of view) we've launched in Germany a few month ago and ...
12
votes
1answer
170 views
Google Webmasters Verification Method
The Google-Bot seems to be hitting my site with the incorrect verification method. I have Google Webmasters set up to use a meta-tag for verification, but I am still receiving requests for the html ...
12
votes
4answers
9k views
How can I clear the “crawl errors” of Google webmaster tools?
How can I clear the "crawl errors" of Google webmaster tools? On my webmaster tools page, there are some "Not found" crawl errors dating back two years which I cleared up a long time ago, but they are ...
11
votes
3answers
3k views
What does Avg Position from Google Webmaster really mean
I have a website I am tracking on Google's Webmaster tools. When I look at the Search queries page it shows me a graph of Impressions and clicks per day. Underneath that there is a table showing ...
10
votes
2answers
2k views
Is it better to have an ErrorDocument 404 redirect back to the homepage or a standard 404 error page?
We run an ecommerce site that was setup by a third party ecommerce software provider, basic shop with product pages, basket and checkout.
The third party vendor set up the htaccess file so that if a ...
10
votes
2answers
671 views
How Many Google +1's Does a Website need in order for Google WebMaster's Tools to Show Characteristics?
I have added the Google +1 Button to my website and discovered the new Social Activity section in Google WebMaster's Tools. Apparently, one of the interesting things you can learn about your audience ...
10
votes
1answer
226 views
Major Google not follow increase since introducing 301 to site
Recently we implemented Varnish in front of our web nodes so that the backend would get some rest from time to time. Since varnish is case sensitive and our app was not we implemented
a 301 in varnish ...
9
votes
3answers
237 views
What constitutes a “substantial, good-faith effort to remove the links”
We engaged the services of a 3rd party SEO consultant to assist us in managing our Meta data and to write regular blogs on our site http://cyberdesignworks.com.au
Without our authorisation, the SEO ...
9
votes
6answers
284 views
New site not showing in Google for unique name
I have launched a site for myself and now I'm doing some simple SEO for it.
The site uses my name and it's unique and has no competition on search engines, but I don't know why Google crawlers ...
9
votes
2answers
2k views
Why is Google Webmaster Tools crawling invalid URLS and showing 500 errors?
Google Webmaster tools is reporting 12k+ 500 errors. Eeek!
None of the URLS are valid- they all contain www.youtube.com. First, why is Google crawling these URLS if they don't exist? I supplied a ...
9
votes
2answers
134 views
Does Google use Google Analytics information in its search algorithms?
Does anyone know whether Google makes use of the information it obtains via Google analytics in ranking of search results?
Does it, for instance, make use of the bounce rate for a page given a ...
9
votes
2answers
127 views
Should I Include RSS Feed URLs in an XML Sitemap?
Simple question - Should I Include the RSS Feed URLs in my site's XML Sitemap?
I am NOT asking whether I should USE an RSS Feed AS an XML sitemap, but rather, should I include the URLs to the ...
9
votes
2answers
797 views
Understanding Google Crawl Stats
I launched my website in Jan '11 and it is indexed in Google which is great - around 300 pages of content so far. I'm trying to understand what happened the Crawl Stats around the end of June and ...
8
votes
1answer
257 views
How long does Google normally take to act on black hat SEO?
One of our competitors recently rocketed up the search rankings. A little investigation revealed it to be a clear-cut case of black hat SEO link farming. I submitted what I believe was a clear and ...
8
votes
2answers
240 views
Why does Google think that pages load slow?
Looking into Google Webmaster Tools in the Site Performance section I see that
On average, pages in your site take 5.0 seconds to load.
Specifically it takes about 5 second to load during last ...
8
votes
3answers
144 views
Using Google Webmaster & Analytics, what data to look at to improve website performance?
Using data from Google Analytics and Webmaster tools, what data should I be looking at to improve my websites performance?
I want to improve the SEO, usability and just general performance of my ...
7
votes
4answers
410 views
Why do some webmasters avoid putting direct links on their pages?
I've seen this more than often in many websites, that the webmaster avoids putting direct links on the page, instead they use a redirect such as following:
...
7
votes
2answers
324 views
I'm using a vanity ccTLD, can I persuade Google to geotarget a different region?
Because I'm still living like it's 2008, I run a website with a .in TLD. The website has nothing to do we India and does not target Indian users.
Unfortunately, when I go to Google Webmaster Tools I ...
7
votes
2answers
543 views
Should add my naked AND www domain as separate sites in Webmaster Tools
Just a quick question: In Google Webmaster tools I have my site set to set to www. and the naked domain.
Do I need to add and verify the site for each variant or do I just keep it as the www and use ...
7
votes
3answers
771 views
90% of 'links to your site' disappeared in Google Webmaster Tools
I was going through Webmaster Tools and I noticed that under 'links to your site' there's only 40 links showing. Down from 700+ yesterday.
I don't think it was anything to do with the quality of the ...
7
votes
1answer
232 views
home page of my site is not appear in google search, when I type site:example.com
I am totally confused, when I place site:example.com in google I see every page of my website in serp(search engine result page) except the home page. I don’t know why it’s happening but I check ...
7
votes
1answer
156 views
Migrating from a wordpress.com to wordpress.org blog without harming SEO
I've had a Wordpress.com weblog for 3 years. And its pages have a good pagerank and are shown in first search results pages.
Because of the limitations, I should migrate to my own WordPress.
How to ...
7
votes
1answer
127 views
What is adding frog characters to my URLs?
While browsing the "Crawl Errors" section of Google Webmaster Tools, I discovered a set of very strange 500 errors in reference to my site:
I was able to track down what these characters are, and ...
7
votes
1answer
397 views
Meaning of Crawl errors
My question is about definition of Crawl errors in Google Webmaster Tools. Crawl errors is devided into few sections.
Let's first consider HTTP section.
I assume that all broken links in this ...
6
votes
4answers
309 views
robots.txt not updated
I have updated some url's and files in robots.txt file to block url's and files from google search results but, still files displaying in search results. As per a suggestion from a site I tried to ...
6
votes
1answer
237 views
Google anonymous sitemap submission
By searching for "How to submit a sitemap to Google" you can find dozens of links, and all of'em truly explain the how to very well.
But all of'em start with this first step:
Login to your Google ...
6
votes
2answers
67 views
Is the Google Webmaster Tools verification temporary?
When you add a site to Google Webmaster Tools, it asks you to verify it (e.g. via a <meta> tag).
I verified a site a while ago, but when I logged in, I noticed that it isn't verified anymore. ...
6
votes
1answer
69 views
Test if Google+ is already with my Website
How can I verify or check if a website is already linked with Google plus?
I already added <link href="https://plus.google.com/{+PageIdGoesHere}" rel="publisher" /> this to my head tag of my ...
6
votes
1answer
77 views
Does Google reprocesses submitted sitemaps from time to time?
Assuming one submits a sitemap for a website in Google Webmaster, does Google reprocess it from time to time? If yes, at which rate?
6
votes
3answers
228 views
How can I decrease relevancy of Creative Commons footer text? (In Google Webmaster Tools)
I know that I may just have to link the image to make this happen, but I figured it was worth asking, just in case there's some other semantic markup or tips I could use...
I have a site that uses ...
5
votes
3answers
1k views
How to get tens of millions of pages indexed by Google bot?
We are currently developing a site that currently has 8 million unique pages that will grow to about 20 million right away, and eventually to about 50 million or more.
Before you criticize... Yes, it ...
5
votes
2answers
360 views
What should I do to notify Google of a switch from “.php” to extension-free URL's?
I've implemented a simple mod-rewrite rule that internally rewrites urls without a file extension (that are not directories) to .php files and removed the .php extension from all our internal links. ...
5
votes
1answer
106 views
How reliable is the number of hits provided by Google site: command?
A partner of my company (not sure whether i can tell their name here - i´ll use example.com instead) asked me yesterday, why there is such a big difference when they enter the site command at google ...
5
votes
2answers
135 views
Understanding CTR in Google Webmaster Tools
I've got a site that's showing a 9% CTR for a phrase in Google Webmaster Tools, but the average position for my site is 14th (this includes 7 local results for this phrase).
I was a little confused ...
5
votes
1answer
539 views
Google Webmaster tools “Time spent downloading a page”
In Google Webmaster Tools -> Diagnostics -> Crawl Stats, there is a chart Time spent downloading a page (in milliseconds).
What is that chart measuring?
Is it the time to fetch the HTML text only, ...
5
votes
3answers
215 views
Removing full site from Google index
I want to remove the contents from Google index. Google index include my websites huge number of pages indexed in Google index about 5,000,000 Pages earlier but now left pages are 3,025,000.
I have ...
5
votes
1answer
234 views
Consolidating google results for 2 domains with the same content
I have 2 domains http://foo.com and a http://bar.com. http://bar.com is just a domain alias for http://foo.com so they have the same content. Results for both domains show up on google, I'd rather all ...
5
votes
1answer
431 views
Sitemap XML version vs simple text (urls list) version, do you know what are the pros?
I usualy submit simple text urls list as sitemap on Google webmaster tools. It's just a matter of simplicity, a simple text file is lightweight, easier to read also for humans (actually for me). :)
...
5
votes
2answers
292 views
Why is Google not listing my site using its preferred domain?
Using Google Webmaster tools my site is set to 'Display URLs as www.mydomain.com' as opposed 'mydomain.com'. This is the setting for both of these sites in Webmaster tools and has been for several ...
5
votes
2answers
116 views
What search statistics are most reliable?
I'm doing some research into the SEO of one my websites and looking at different keywords and the search traffic they generate.
Let's say I have a search term I'm ranked number one for a keyword and ...
5
votes
1answer
304 views
How does Google Rank “Priority” for “Not Found” errors?
Google lists Not Found Errors in Webmaster Tools as Ranked by Priority, but what is Priority based on?
5
votes
1answer
99 views
How do Search Engines Segment Against Locale?
Assume I run a multi-lingual website. If I had a Spanish section, it should be included in Spanish-segmented search engines such as
Google Spain
Google Peru
Google El Salvador
and excluded in the ...
5
votes
3answers
258 views
Google Webmaster Tools - Why does Avg Position change when drilling down in Search Query Analysis?
In Google Webmaster Tools --> Seach Queries, you can see a list like this:
I am finding that the Avg. Position column o the above list is seriously out of sync with the Avg Position shown in the ...
5
votes
1answer
90 views
How to create google video sitemap urls for very large video files with distinct segments?
I have a large video files about 1 hr in duration, with different sections of the video corresponding to different distinct sub topics . For example, the whole video may be about an yoga exercise ...
5
votes
1answer
236 views
Remove home page from Google cache
The Google Webmaster Tools Remove URL section allows you to specify a page URL to be removed from the index, or cache, or both.
However, I want to remove just the home page, which is /
I want to ...
5
votes
4answers
193 views
Total Indexed 0, 99 not selected in webmaster tools
I recently changed domain names from xxx.com to xxx.ca I created all the 301's submitted sitemaps and submitted a change of address to google webmaster tools on Dec 16th. I've since seen urls change ...
4
votes
3answers
2k views
How do I find information on who links to my sites?
I'm trying to figure out if there's a free way to get information on back links to my site.
I've had webmaster tools and Google Analytics set up for years. But I can't find access to data about site ...
