Google Webmaster Tools Guide for SEO
Google Webmaster Tool is a Free toolset provided by Google. With the help of Google webmaster Tool you can understand what’s going with your website, I mean helps in identifying the issue, if website infected by malware it will intimate by message in webmaster.
If you don’t have Google Webmaster Tool then you need to get GMT account.
Google Webmaster Verification:
I have already explained in previous post How to verify website in Google Webmaster. So you for verification procedure you can see those post.
Today I have explained here various functionality of Google Webmaster.
After signup and verification you’ll start seeing data on your website.
Dashboard
When you’ll open your website Webmaster then Dashboard comes first. Dashboard of GWT show overview of your website, such as crawl status, what keyword you are ranking and how much traffic you are getting, sitemap status.
The dashboard First section shows the crawl status of your websites. Second section shows search queries and third section shows sitemap status
DNS
Server connectivity
Robots.txt
Messages
Google Webmaster is the place where Google communicate with website webmaster. You Can see messages in this section which inform you that your website have 404 Error, pages infected with malware and pages have issue. You can also see general messages over here like your website is now connected with Google analytics etc.
Next section is search appearance . This section contains structure data, data highlighter, HTML improvement and sites links.
Search Appearance
Structure Data
In structure data section you’ll see the website structure data that Google locates on your website. Structure data are from Schema.org or other microformats.
Data Highlighter
The data highlighter will helps to Google identify some types of structured data on the pages without the need for the code to actually be implemented.
With the help structure data Google can present your website data attractive and in new ways in search results.
As per the above image, select page for which you want to show structure data, then create page set, then after review your pages and at least publish it.
HTML Improvements
In HTML improvement section Google crawlers inform about these any potential issue with content on your pages, Duplicate, short or missing Meta title or meta description. These issues won’t prevent from appearing in the Search Results Page. Title and Description text appear in search page so it's important to have a descriptive title and description.
Sitelinks
Sitelinks are automatically generated links that may appear under the search Result. Siteslinks are internal pages links. Google automatically generates these sitelinks. If you don’t want then you will remove sites links by demote them.
Not all links are sitelinks, but as per popularity you’ll get naturally sitelinks. With the help of this selection you have full control on which URL’s are shown as sitelinks.
Search Traffic
Search Analysis, links to your site, manual action, mobile usability and international targeting comes under search Traffic section. I have explained here these one by one here.
Search Analysis
In the search Analysis section you can get an overview of those keywords that are coming in search Results. You can get an idea about top traffic driving keywords of your website, number of impression and clicks, and therefore the click through rate (CTR) and the average positions that your website was ranking for a particular keyword.
Links to Your site
This section identifies the domains that link to you the most. One more thing that you won’t see all links if you want to see those links then type “Link:your Domain “ Google search.
Internal Links
Linking to your internal pages together is great way for rank in SERP. If you link your internal pages properly then crawling rate also increases.
Internal links section shows you website internal links list.
Manual Action
In manual action section Google will inform you of about any specific or whole website manual penalty.
International Targeting You can Target your audience based on location and language. With the help of international Targeting section you’ll check language tag and locations tag.
Mobile Usability
24 April 2015 Google introduce Mobile Friendly algorithms its have necessary to have website mobile friendly for rank in mobile search Result.
This section will inform you about mobile usability issues of your website. Check all issue and resolve them.
Next section is Google index .
Google index
This section includes index status, content keywords, blocked resources and remove urls feature.
Index Status
This section will show the no. of indexed pages with time period. You can also see the total no of indexed pages.
Content Keywords
This section shows the most used keywords in content of website. You can see the occurrence of particular keywords in which url's or pages. The Content Keywords page lists the most significant keywords and their variants Google found when crawling your site. If unexpected keywords, such as "Viagra", appear on this page, this could be a sign that your site has been hacked.
Blocked Resources
Blocked Resources provide the information about which part of website are blocked by robots.txt.
Googlebot needs access to many resources on your page in order to render and index the page optimally. For example, JavaScript, CSS, and image files should be available to Googlebot so that it can see pages like an average user.
If a site's robots.txt file disallows crawling these resources, it can affect how well Google renders and indexes the page, which can affect the page's ranking in Google search.
Remove URLs
Remove URLs feature used when anyone wants to remove url's from the SERP. I mean, suppose a service or page was removed by you from website that mean 404 errors and that 404 pages already rank in SERP, in this situation you have need to remove that url by using the Remove URLs feature in webmaster
Link for Remove URLs https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals
Crawl
Now next is crawl section. In this section you can see information related to crawl status.
Crawl Error
The crawl error section will show you if there is any problem related to your websites on mobiles or the Desktop. The most common error that you’re seeing in crawl error section is 404 Error. Which means Googlebot can’t find your page. When your website any page doesn’t exist, but in the past it was existed then 404 Error occur.
These 404 Errors will affect your ranking. So it's necessary to resolve these 404 Errors. By 301 Redirect to the most appropriate page your can resolve 404 Errors. But if you have lots of 404 Errors then you will do it by adding 301 Redirect all 404 error to home page code on your htaccess file.
Crawl Status
The Crawl Stats page provides information on Googlebot's activity on your site for the last 90 days. Crawl stats are available only for verified sites.
Fetch as Google
If you want to Googlebot crawl your website or page quickly, then you can use fetch as Google section.
It's too simple, first of all enter the url which you want to fetch and then click on fetch button. one more thing if you need to fetch home page of the website then leave empty and click on fetch button. After that you see a pending status.sometimes later pending status toggle to successful.
Robots.txt Tester
There are some pages you don’t want to Google to index. These pages may be login area, private data. With the help of robots.txt you can block any crawler for any website pages.
I have already explained about How to create Robots.txt File in my past post.
With the help of Robots.txt you can test your Robots.txt file. If there is any mistake in Robots.txt file, then you can see Error in Robots.txt Tester.
For example, by mistake your block, your whole site for index, then you can see the error message over here. Also, you can test for a particular page is blocked or not?
Sitemaps
With the help of sitemaps feature in webmaster you can add & test your websites sitemap . Also can see the no of submitted pages and indexed pages .
URL Parameters
If you don’t have Google Webmaster Tool then you need to get GMT account.
Google Webmaster Verification:
I have already explained in previous post How to verify website in Google Webmaster. So you for verification procedure you can see those post.
Today I have explained here various functionality of Google Webmaster.
After signup and verification you’ll start seeing data on your website.
Dashboard
When you’ll open your website Webmaster then Dashboard comes first. Dashboard of GWT show overview of your website, such as crawl status, what keyword you are ranking and how much traffic you are getting, sitemap status.
 |
| Google Webmaster Dashboard |
DNS
Server connectivity
Robots.txt
Messages
Google Webmaster is the place where Google communicate with website webmaster. You Can see messages in this section which inform you that your website have 404 Error, pages infected with malware and pages have issue. You can also see general messages over here like your website is now connected with Google analytics etc.
Next section is search appearance . This section contains structure data, data highlighter, HTML improvement and sites links.
Search Appearance
Structure Data
In structure data section you’ll see the website structure data that Google locates on your website. Structure data are from Schema.org or other microformats.
 |
| Structure Data |
Data Highlighter
The data highlighter will helps to Google identify some types of structured data on the pages without the need for the code to actually be implemented.
With the help structure data Google can present your website data attractive and in new ways in search results.
As per the above image, select page for which you want to show structure data, then create page set, then after review your pages and at least publish it.
HTML Improvements
In HTML improvement section Google crawlers inform about these any potential issue with content on your pages, Duplicate, short or missing Meta title or meta description. These issues won’t prevent from appearing in the Search Results Page. Title and Description text appear in search page so it's important to have a descriptive title and description.
Sitelinks
Sitelinks are automatically generated links that may appear under the search Result. Siteslinks are internal pages links. Google automatically generates these sitelinks. If you don’t want then you will remove sites links by demote them.
Not all links are sitelinks, but as per popularity you’ll get naturally sitelinks. With the help of this selection you have full control on which URL’s are shown as sitelinks.
Search Traffic
Search Analysis, links to your site, manual action, mobile usability and international targeting comes under search Traffic section. I have explained here these one by one here.
Search Analysis
In the search Analysis section you can get an overview of those keywords that are coming in search Results. You can get an idea about top traffic driving keywords of your website, number of impression and clicks, and therefore the click through rate (CTR) and the average positions that your website was ranking for a particular keyword.
Links to Your site
This section identifies the domains that link to you the most. One more thing that you won’t see all links if you want to see those links then type “Link:your Domain “ Google search.
Internal Links
Linking to your internal pages together is great way for rank in SERP. If you link your internal pages properly then crawling rate also increases.
Internal links section shows you website internal links list.
Manual Action
In manual action section Google will inform you of about any specific or whole website manual penalty.
International Targeting You can Target your audience based on location and language. With the help of international Targeting section you’ll check language tag and locations tag.
Mobile Usability
24 April 2015 Google introduce Mobile Friendly algorithms its have necessary to have website mobile friendly for rank in mobile search Result.
This section will inform you about mobile usability issues of your website. Check all issue and resolve them.
Next section is Google index .
Google index
This section includes index status, content keywords, blocked resources and remove urls feature.
Index Status
This section will show the no. of indexed pages with time period. You can also see the total no of indexed pages.
Content Keywords
This section shows the most used keywords in content of website. You can see the occurrence of particular keywords in which url's or pages. The Content Keywords page lists the most significant keywords and their variants Google found when crawling your site. If unexpected keywords, such as "Viagra", appear on this page, this could be a sign that your site has been hacked.
 |
| Content keywords |
Blocked Resources
Blocked Resources provide the information about which part of website are blocked by robots.txt.
Googlebot needs access to many resources on your page in order to render and index the page optimally. For example, JavaScript, CSS, and image files should be available to Googlebot so that it can see pages like an average user.
If a site's robots.txt file disallows crawling these resources, it can affect how well Google renders and indexes the page, which can affect the page's ranking in Google search.
Remove URLs
Remove URLs feature used when anyone wants to remove url's from the SERP. I mean, suppose a service or page was removed by you from website that mean 404 errors and that 404 pages already rank in SERP, in this situation you have need to remove that url by using the Remove URLs feature in webmaster
Link for Remove URLs https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals
Now next is crawl section. In this section you can see information related to crawl status.
Crawl Error
The crawl error section will show you if there is any problem related to your websites on mobiles or the Desktop. The most common error that you’re seeing in crawl error section is 404 Error. Which means Googlebot can’t find your page. When your website any page doesn’t exist, but in the past it was existed then 404 Error occur.
These 404 Errors will affect your ranking. So it's necessary to resolve these 404 Errors. By 301 Redirect to the most appropriate page your can resolve 404 Errors. But if you have lots of 404 Errors then you will do it by adding 301 Redirect all 404 error to home page code on your htaccess file.
Crawl Status
The Crawl Stats page provides information on Googlebot's activity on your site for the last 90 days. Crawl stats are available only for verified sites.
Fetch as Google
If you want to Googlebot crawl your website or page quickly, then you can use fetch as Google section.
It's too simple, first of all enter the url which you want to fetch and then click on fetch button. one more thing if you need to fetch home page of the website then leave empty and click on fetch button. After that you see a pending status.sometimes later pending status toggle to successful.
Robots.txt Tester
There are some pages you don’t want to Google to index. These pages may be login area, private data. With the help of robots.txt you can block any crawler for any website pages.
I have already explained about How to create Robots.txt File in my past post.
With the help of Robots.txt you can test your Robots.txt file. If there is any mistake in Robots.txt file, then you can see Error in Robots.txt Tester.
For example, by mistake your block, your whole site for index, then you can see the error message over here. Also, you can test for a particular page is blocked or not?
Sitemaps
With the help of sitemaps feature in webmaster you can add & test your websites sitemap . Also can see the no of submitted pages and indexed pages .
URL Parameters
