Former Googler, Vanessa Fox joined Google in 2005 and helped developed Google’s Webmaster Central which also included Google Webmaster Tools.  What started as a “Sitemaps” project, Fox spoke with site owners at search conferences and realized that Google had all kinds of useful information that could help them create better websites for their audiences.  Read more on how the “Sitemaps” project began here.  As a result Google Webmaster tools was launched in 2006 and almost a decade later is still one of the most useful tools on the Web for digital marketers.

One of the great things about Google Webmaster Tools is their updating and enhancing of the tools.  From initial releases  to more recent updates, GWT continues to be an extremely useful resource for site owners.

Of course there are more, but here is a look at five great uses of Google Webmaster Tools that you should be leveraging on a regular basis.

XML Sitemap Submission and Monitoring – really this is what started the whole Webmaster Tools project, being able to submit and XML sitemap to Google to help Google with the indexation of your site. You can submit multiple sitemaps and see how Google has indexed your site. Google has since added a separate indexation graph for your site based on their overall crawls of your website.



Evaluation of Your External Link Inventory – currently accessed in GWT via Search Traffic > Links to Your Site, you can evaluate what Google is seeing as the other websites that are linking to your content. While this is but a sample (according to Google), you can use this data to:

1. See the total links pointing to your site
2. See which sites are linking to your pages the most
3. See which of your site pages are receiving the most links
4. See what keywords are being used in the linking or “anchor” text of the links pointing to your site.
5. You can measure the ratio of links pointing to your homepage vs deeper site pages
6. You can identify low quality links for the purposing of back link clean up or for link disavowing
7. You can export this data and analyze further

Evaluation of Crawl Errors – this is currently accessed in GWT via Crawl > Crawl Errors.  This data can be useful in diagnosing a number of site issues.  You can review errors by device such as desktop, smartphone, feature phone etc.  Google reports on various errors that may be occurring on your site including:

1. Server Errors – which could be a result of any number of server connectivity issues with your site.
2. Soft 404 Errors – where the target URL does not exist, but your server is not returning a 404 (file not found) error.
3. 404 errors – where the URL may be pointing to a page that does not exist.
4. Not followed – as a result of Google being unable to crawl Flash, JS or follow a redirect.
5. Access Denied – a page that Google cannot access due to login requirements or the fact that Google is being blocked by robots.txt.

You should be monitoring your crawl errors regularly in order to address issues and work on reducing the number of crawl errors on your website.  If you are wondering what impact this may have on your Search efforts, we have worked with a number of clients to address site errors and improve site performance and every time a number of these items have been “fixed” Google tends to show a little more “love” to the client’s websites.  In conjunction with other efforts we have seen site experience lifts in visibility in the search results and as a result improve their traffic from organic search.  Fixing site errors and improving site and page performance can definitely have a positive impact on your Search efforts.

Another cool feature with GWT is that with the site errors report Google provides you with a trend line so you can monitor whether your site errors are increasing or are becoming less.




Analyzing Duplicate Content via HTML Improvements – a quick and easy way to see if your site suffers from duplicate or low quality content is via HTML Improvements in GWT.  Accessed by going to Search Appearance > HTML Improvements, you can see if your site is experiencing missing or duplicate title and meta description tags.  Or if your site has short or non-informative tags to which you can them export the list and begin updating your tags to be more relevant to your content and for your site visitors.

Access to Other Google Resources – through Webmaster Tools, you can also access additional Google Tools that can help diagnose and improve your website’s performance.  From the left rail of options within Google Webmaster Tools, you can click on “Other resources” and have access to tools such as Google’s Structured data testing tool, Google Places, and Page Speed Insight via Google’s developer tools.




Of course there are a number of other features that you have access to in Google Webmaster Tools including being able to demote sitelinks, see which keywords are bringing traffic to your site via the “Search Queries” report and you can also evaluate your internal links as well.  As a free tool, GWT is probably the best one available for site owners to gain insight into their web properties.  The do say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the GWT tool is so popular that even Bing has updated their Webmaster Tools.

If you do not currently use Google Webmaster Tools regularly then there is no better time to start.  For more information on recent updates with Google Webmaster Tools, visit the Google Webmaster Central blog.


About the Author
Jody has been specializing in organic search for the better part of the past decade. Having spent seven years with Mediative (formerly Enquiro), Jody has dealt with some of the largest brands in the world reviewing sites, providing insightful analysis and mapping online strategies for our clients. Jody has contributed articles to leading industry resources such as Search Engine Guide, Web Pro News Canada, Search Engine Journal and his own blog Marketing-Jive.com. Jody has created and developed SEO for Website Redesign solutions, has prepared numerous SEO best practices and is an advocate of continuous improvement. Jody plays a key role in helping Mediative deliver cutting edge search strategies, assisting clients with adapting to the ever-changing online universe.