Loading...According to Alexa Search Engine rankings, Google is currently the most used search engine on the Web (http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/google.com+yahoo.com+altavista.com). The verb “to google” has even entered everyday language as a general term meaning to search for information on the Internet, probably, but not necessarily, using Google itself. Further fleshing out its position at the top of the search engine pile, Google also offers a suite of powerful Webmaster Tools that help webmasters better optimize their site for Google results, and that also can provide powerful analytical data about website traffic.
Webmaster Central is the home for all of Google’s Webmaster Tools and also is a source of informative and authoritative advice about how to optimize a website for Google indexing. To use Google Webmaster Tools, webmasters must verify that they are the owner of the site they want to register, but this usually only takes a few minutes.
Google Webmaster Tools offers webmasters powerful insight into exactly how Google views their own websites. This can help webmasters identify problems with accessing or indexing their sites. Google’s Webmaster Tools even gives users a content analysis feature that helps webmasters optimize the titles and descriptions of their web pages for Googlebot. This is a highly important component of Google indexing and can help webmasters increase their rankings in Google.
Webmaster Tools also is linked with the powerful Google Analytics software, which shows users both Google search rankings and general site traffic data. This can be highly useful in helping webmasters ensure that their site is ranked highly and is receiving traffic from Google searches.
Webmaster Tools also helps webmasters optimize their Google search results through direct communication with Google. Webmasters can set Google to crawl their website text more or less frequently, so websites with frequent updates can be scanned and indexed more regularly. Webmasters can also ensure that duplicate content does not appear in Google search results and fight unauthorized copying of their content using Google Webmaster Tools.
Whether webmasters are operating a major retailer website, a small website for a local business, or even a personal blog, Google Webmaster Tools can help make sure a website appears prominently in Google search results. Because Google is one of the major sources of Internet traffic for so many web pages, these tools can be invaluable for any webmaster.