George S. SEO Expert

Google Webmaster Tools for SEO

If you decide to promote the website by yourself, you’d better consider an indispensable tool that provides a great number of opportunities. It's Google Search Console (Google Webmaster Tools - the former name). In this article, we will learn how to start working with this Google service and what benefits it has for your business.

How to add a website to Google Search Console

Google Search Console or Google Webmaster Tools is a free tool for webmasters to get started with their website analytics work. With the help of it, you can check:

- the presence of critical errors on the website;

- the indexing of the website by search robots;

- what web resources are linked to your website;

- what queries bring visitors to your website;

To start using the service, you need to have a Google account. If you don't have an account, you can create one in a couple of minutes.

If you already have a Google account, then follow the link and enter your website address in the field of one of the confirmation methods:

In Google Search Console, you can verify the rights to the site in several ways:

With the help of DNS. With this confirmation method, you can enter the website name, for example: domen.com without https or http protocols, without www, etc.

After entering the website name, look at the pop-up window and copy the text entry that starts with google-site-verification.

Other methods allow you to confirm the rights to the website only at the specified address with a specific protocol. For example:

http://domain.com/

http://www.domain.com/

https://domain.com/

https://www.domain.com/

The confirmation methods are as follows:

HTML tag that is placed on the main page of the website. It must be in a section before the first section;

HTML file, located in the root directory of the site;

Google Analytics account;

Google Tag Manager.

The most popular confirmation method is via an HTML file. An HTML file is generated in the Google Search Console service (the file will look like this - google649629dcb50faf0e.html), it must be downloaded and uploaded to the root directory of your website according to the given instructions. The file must be available at - https://your_site/google649629dcb50faf0e.html. If the page opens without problems in the browser, click the “Confirm” button.

Key features of the Google Search Console panel

By selecting the desired site in the toolbar, we will receive information about its current status:

- notifications and critical errors;

- scan errors;

- the number of search queries for a certain period;

- sitemap file information and the presence of errors in it.

Currently, the Google Search Console has the following sections:

- messages

- efficiency

- URL validation

- coverage

- sitemaps

- removal

- download speed

- mobile friendly

- manual action

- security issues

- legacy tools and reports

- links

Now we’re going to learn more about each of the sections.

Messages

This section receives notifications about various errors on the website and monthly reports. If you're having trouble ranking or indexing your website, the first thing to do is to check for critical error messages.

Efficiency

One of the most useful reports for website owners. It contains the following data:

- search queries that led visitors to the site;

- pages to which there were transitions from the search;

- the number of impressions of the website for certain queries;

- the number of clicks;

- the average CTR (percentage of impressions that led to clicks) of the page in the search;

- the average position on the request in the search;

- the countries in which the search request was made;

- the type of device on which the request was made.

URL validation

This tool helps to check whether a particular page is indexed, how Google sees your page when indexing it and if there are any errors on the page. Also, you can submit a new page for indexing or report changes on the old page in this section.

Coverage

In this section, you can get information about the number of indexed pages, pages that are not shown in search results and pages that could not be indexed for various reasons. You can find specific error pages and get recommendations for fixing them.

Sitemaps

In this subsection, you can add a sitemap.xml file and check it for errors.

Removal

If Google has indexed pages that you want to remove from the search, this tool allows you to temporarily (for up to six months) exclude particular pages from search results.

Mobile friendly

The report can detect website pages that are inconvenient for viewing on mobile devices.

Manual action

This subsection may contain messages about various violations found on your website and how to fix them. Violations can be of the following form: uninformative useless content, hidden text, excessive keywords, artificial links to or from your site, etc.

Security issues

If the site has any security issues (for example, the site is hacked and infected with a virus), you will see notifications in this section.

Web Tools

In this section you can find links to the following tools:

Test Tools:

- Structured data validation tool;

- Structured Data Markup Wizard;

- Tool for checking the markup in emails.

Other Tools:

- Google My Business is a tool for placing company information in Google search and on Google Maps;

- Google Merchant Center is a tool that allows merchants to publish data about their stores and products in Google Shopping and other Google services;

- PageSpeed ​​Insights is a tool for checking the speed of website loading and the ease of viewing on mobile devices;

- Custom Search is a website search tool from Google;

- Google Domains is the service that works in the USA only;

- Academy for webmasters is a section with the tips for creating sites and links to some useful resources.

Links

External links. This section contains data on the number of links, their texts and pages linked with the other websites.

Internal links. This report contains the number of internal links to a particular page on your website. Use this data when you need to distribute link juice across the website pages.

So we have shown all the main things that you should know about Google Webmaster when you start working with it.

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