Google’s webmaster tools bring out newer and newer options , some aiding webmasters while , some encountering large hue and cry from several webmasters. If i recall, initially Google’s webmaster tools only included the option for submiting your XML sitemap for educating google . One could create an XML sitemap using the standard given my Google ( How to create a Sitemap) , you can get your newly launched site of the ground. This is just a basic requirement, of course and does not ensure that all pages will get indexed by google . Ever since launching this, they kept upgrading it to allow a webmaster to find answers to several regularly asked questions – I will just mention some of the good ones here
The prefered domain tool : Getting linked from different external sites is something every webmaster dreams of , and that is what helps better your chances of being found – either via referals or even by search engines. now when you recieve a link , the person linking you need not remember what you prefer *www.domain.com* or *http://domain.com* and this is what a search engine will also note , and thus his link power will get distributed to 2 different url’s . This can also be fixed by using 301 redirects , but that is possible for geeky webmasters – google provides a simple solution for general website owners from this tool.
Robotxt Analysis tool - This is THE tool for finding out if any pages or path on your website is being blocked and not crawled by google or any other search engine for that matter . When inside the webmaster console , as it is now called under the diagonistic tab, you will find this tool which will show wether Google has found your robots file, and when it has last accessed it. What are the pages you are blocking google to enter for any particular domain and subdomain can be found here.
URL Removal : A regular question on many forums is how can i remove or prevent my pages from getting indexed by google . Yeah , don’t be surprised , many people actually need it . For example , a warez site who shares pirated downloads or MP3’s would not want his pages to be on google , as that is an open invitation for the producers to locate them and shut them down . I personally had a family website where there were photos i am not keen on sharing outside my family , which i deindexed within 1 day using this URL removal tool . To properly use this, as advised : it is always preferable to first disallow the URL’s via your robots.txt or robots meta tag and then submit the url for removal.
Also along with this , google has now started providing direct communication with webmasters , who have taken the effort to verify site ownership , create a sitemap for every subdomain etc and also trying to adhere to its webmaster guidelines. Initially Google was sending direct emails , which suddenly started getting abused by spammers and spoofers, who created dummy emails – thus confusing webmasters even more. But now , through the webmaster console itself , google has a message centre where they leave tips and updates , often very specific to our sites. Just today i noticed / recieved a feedback from google , which said “hey , you have one warning “. I clicked on the message and it showed me that since I had last submitted my xml-sitemap , i have modified my support.html to support.php and hence there was a 404 being detected. I immediately rectified this and also updated my sitemap and pinged back google.
Coming back to the topic header, googles latest option under webmaster console – the paid links notification tool. In order to maintain a high quality index , google used to allow its visitors to always report a spammy link or url . Earlier this was possible from under google.com/about/webmasters/ or something . Google always devalued this form as the most people who took pains to use this was envious webmasters and obviously it is not possible for them to manually review every submission. But this new tool is not at all for spam reports , but for a much more questionable practise – buying links to channelize Google Page Rank(tm).. which google considers a violation of its guidelines . I had written a much detailed post about this on DP. While some webmasters are extremely unhappy as this would mean one kind of profit for business will get shut down in fear of being penalised by Google , some webmasters are also of the opinion that Google itself is in fault by having the PageRank system online.
Now the way I see it is : a website owner operates a website for mostly commercial reasons , hence he should surely try to find means of monetizing it , but not at cost of devaluing itself , nor by increasing spam or giving outgoing links to sites of no worth . Selling Advertising on ones website is and always was a coveted thing … but typically Advertising works in the way , that it adds value to the web visitor coming on to your website . If you have a website about cooking or gardening , which is mostly visited by womenfolk and you sell banner space or text links to websites selling women’s clothes or jewellery , it makes sense and gives value . But say for example , you own and operate a website for baseball fans or Tips on how to create Wooden Furniture and you are a prestigious website revered or regularly visited , and you put a 3 word footer text link to the Viagra shop , or Ink refills , it makes no sense at all . The viagra shop or Ink refill estore is simply trying to cash on your site having high pagerank and thus hoping to get some PR / link value transfered to its 2 week old spammy website , which otherwise would be nowhere to be seen . THIS is what Google is trying to stop by bringing in the Paid Links Reporting tool .
are the illustrious blog network owners and PaidtoBlog authors . It is not a big secret that blogs are a great way to get yourself or your product or service popularized .
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If you like what I make you are free to donate $2-5 – but its optional , and the theme will be free , as long as you abide by the basic rules – i.e. show your love by showing your linky love .
don’t blame me , hehe . I will make some other 4images template for this blog again soon .
