Google Webmaster Tools

Get Your Links Back! New Feature In Google Webmaster Tools

Google has added an important feature to the Google Webmaster tools area.
Google tells you exactly which pages result in a 404 error on your site. This has existed for sometime. They now let you know which of your 404 pages have links pointing to them. I used this tool and quickly found links pointing to [...]

Google has added an important feature to the Google Webmaster tools area.

Google tells you exactly which pages result in a 404 error on your site. This has existed for sometime. They now let you know which of your 404 pages have links pointing to them. I used this tool and quickly found links pointing to non existent pages for many of my domains. Of course, this was quickly rectified with 301 redirects.

Google wants to give you this information for a few reasons:

1. 404s creates a bad user experience
2. It benefits YOU. Google wants to count the valid links pointing to your site which translates into better rankings and more visibility on Google.
3. Having links to 404s can skew their algorithm.

Here are some more detailed posts regarding the change:

• Google Webmaster Central posts information their blog.
• Free Links to Your Site by Matt Cutts
• Google’s New Tools for Site Link Strengthening by Search Engine Watch.

Sitelinks in Google Webmaster Tools

What are Sitelinks?
Take a look at the below Google listing. You will notice a few links under the regular listing … Inside Politics, Political Ticker, etc. Google has determined that this is the navigational hierarchy for cnn.com. These are referred to as Sitelinks.

Can I change the Sitelinks listed by Google?
Google webmaster tools gives you [...]

What are Sitelinks?
Take a look at the below Google listing. You will notice a few links under the regular listing … Inside Politics, Political Ticker, etc. Google has determined that this is the navigational hierarchy for cnn.com. These are referred to as Sitelinks.

Can I change the Sitelinks listed by Google?
Google webmaster tools gives you the ability to block specific Sitelinks. You are not able to modify the Sitelinks, or add to the list of Sitelinks. To block Sitelinks, login to Google webmaster Tools and click “Links” > “Sitelinks.”

Can I Influence the Sitelinks?
There are a couple of ways to influence Sitelinks:

1. Your website should be easy to navigate and users should understand how to drill through your site. It should be EASY to find the information they are looking over through a meaningful hierarchy. If a user experiences difficulties navigating through your website, chances are that a search engine will as well.
2. When you submit your XML sitemap to Google, you can set the priority of each page, 1 being the highest. The higher the priority, the more important the page is. Google may not use this data but they will definitely consider it.

I found the information on Hochman Consultants pretty useful. Here’s what they say:

I’ve worked on a number of sites with Sitelinks, and these sites are similar in the following ways:

1. Site ranks first for the keyword(s) that generate the Sitelinks listing
2. Easily spiderable, structured navigation
3. Fairly high natural search traffic
4. High click through rates from the search results page
5. Useful outbound links
6. Inbound links from high quality sites
7. Site age is several years or older

Here are some more helpful links:
Provide Feedback on Sitelinks
How does Google compile the list of links shown below search results?
How To Get Google Sitelinks

This stuff has been around for a while but it’s never too late to brush up.

Are Your Images Labeled?

Lee Ogden wrote an excellent article regarding Organic SEO - specifically keywords within articles. He makes some excellent points.
Here’s one:
Using keyword research to flavor the content, whether it’s verbal, in print, in video or audio can all influence how the outcome of the PR action is available through search. Using keywords during an interview [...]

Lee Ogden wrote an excellent article regarding Organic SEO - specifically keywords within articles. He makes some excellent points.
Here’s one:

Using keyword research to flavor the content, whether it’s verbal, in print, in video or audio can all influence how the outcome of the PR action is available through search. Using keywords during an interview for example, can influence how the print version of that interview is discovered on site search or general search engines.

The thing to keep in mind is that if a digital asset (text, image, video, audio) can be searched on, then it can be optimized.

He brings up an EXCELLENT point regarding digital assets. Google images has been sending me a crapload of traffic for an images site. It is extremely important to optimize the ALT tag keywords of your images and also named the images according to the picture. For example, if you have a picture of a dog jumping, name it “dog_jumping.jpg” and create a descriptive alt tag. Read Google’s article about Using Alt Attributes Smartly for more information.

Here is a quote from the above link:

Update: Some of you have asked about the difference between the “alt” and “title” attributes. According to the W3C recommendations, the “alt” attribute specifies an alternate text for user agents that cannot display images, forms or applets. The “title” attribute is a bit different: it “offers advisory information about the element for which it is set.” As the Googlebot does not see the images directly, we generally concentrate on the information provided in the “alt” attribute. Feel free to supplement the “alt” attribute with “title” and other attributes if they provide value to your users!

Here is another great article about Optimizing Your Site For Google Search. Here’s a snippet of the article:

Most importantly enable enhanced image search in google sitemasters tools. Find it under Diagnostics / Tools / Enhanced Image Search

. I’ve JUST started using this a month ago so I can’t comment on it yet but I’ll keep everyone posted.

Google has also released an image labeler (a while ago). It works like this:
1) You click “Start Labeling” and you are automatically paired up with someone
2) Google shows you an image. If you see a picture of a house, Google will give you exclude words that you can’t label the images with.
3) You start entering words that describe the picture you see.
4) Once you and your partner enter a tag that matches, you move onto the next image. The purpose is to get as many points as
possible. The REAL purpose is to help Google identify what the images are.

Visit Google Image Labeler

This is all pretty old news but I’m sure someone out there will learn something from this.

Google Webmaster Central

This posting is about Google Wembaster Central. Every serious webmaster SHOULD BE signed up with Webmaster Central. Google Webmaster Central shows you the following information:
1. When Googlebot last crawled your pages
2. If your pages are in the Google index or not.
3. All web crawl errors. For example:
- HTTP Errors
- URL’s not [...]

This posting is about Google Wembaster Central. Every serious webmaster SHOULD BE signed up with Webmaster Central. Google Webmaster Central shows you the following information:

1. When Googlebot last crawled your pages

2. If your pages are in the Google index or not.

3. All web crawl errors. For example:
- HTTP Errors
- URL’s not found
- URL’s not followed
- Whats restricted by robots.txt
- etc

4. Crawl Rate
- This measures how many pages are crawled per day
- Number of KB downloaded a day
- You can select how fast you would like Googlebot to crawl your site

5. Query Stats
This is HUGE. Query stats state what terms people are linking to you with. For example, if an external site is linking to you with keywords “Online shopping,” it will state what keyword they are linking to you with. It also states the top search queries that people type into Google to find your site.

6. Links
Shows you how many links are on the web to specific pages of your site.

As you can see, Google Webmaster Central gives you tremendous value, all for free. If you’re in the sandbox, you can try to figure out why you’re in the sandbox, when you were put there, and possibly find out the reasons.

Google Webmaster Central - Backlinks Increased

Its been reported that Google Webmaster Central is showing an increase in backlinks. Most webmasters have seen a significant increase in backlinks for some reason, not quite sure why. Google might correct this but it is positively affecting webmasters right now.

Its been reported that Google Webmaster Central is showing an increase in backlinks. Most webmasters have seen a significant increase in backlinks for some reason, not quite sure why. Google might correct this but it is positively affecting webmasters right now.