Google Webmaster Tools Update

Hello. I’m Alec Sharratt. I am a digital marketing executive here at Koozai, and today I am going to be talking a little bit about the updates we’ve seen in Google Webmaster Tools over the course of 2011.

The four major updates I’m going to focus on are parameter handling, linking to Analytics, +1 integration, and instant previews. These are all reflections of what have actually happened in search as well.

So starting at the top, parameter handling, Webmaster Tools now incorporates a section where you can actually specify how Google handles certain URL parameters. This is particularly useful if you are trying to
exclude WordPress blog files or certain pages that you might not want indexed or found in Google.

Linking to Analytics, this is a really big feature. You can now link your Webmaster Tools account to your Google Analytics account, and as a result, you can get click-through data and impression data in Webmaster Tools on all of your keywords. This is a really useful step forward.

+1 integration is obviously a reflection of the Google +1 button which was brought out in 2011 as well. Here you can see the impact that that’s had on search and how many +1’s you’ve gained and what sort of activities happened there.

Instant previews are another 2011 feature. You can now see the site previewed by just hovering your mouse over the listing in the organic search results. In Webmaster Tools, you can now see what sites will look like, and it can provide suggestions with how to improve that as well.

Again, this is a summary of what’s happened with Google Webmaster Tools. My name is Alec Sharratt. If you want to know anything more, please visit our website at www.koozai.com or follow us on Twitter or Facebook. All of the information will be at the bottom of the screen. Thanks. Goodbye.