Thursday, January 22, 2009 at 10:21 AM
2008 was another great year for the Webmaster Central team. We experienced tremendous user growth with our blogs (97% increase in monthly pageviews), Help Center (25%), Help Forums (225%), and Webmaster Tools (35%). We would like to welcome our new users that joined us in '08, and thank our loyal and passionate user base that have been with us for the last couple of years. We focused on two basic goals for 2008, and here's how we think we did:
Goal #1: Educate and grow our webmaster community
Goal #1: Educate and grow our webmaster community
- We had our first ever online webmaster chat in February '08 to answer your top questions, and followed it up with three more. They have been incredibly successful, and we're planning for more this year.
- We'd like to send a special thank you to our Bionic Posters, who have played a huge part in supporting our growing community.
- Localization has been a big focus for us, so we launched our blog and Help Center in additional languages, and made Webmaster Tools available in 40 languages. We hope this makes it easier for people in other parts of the world to adopt our tools and gain a better understanding of how search works.
- We launched a new Help Forum in English and Polish, with a broader rollout planned in other languages this year.
- Our SEO starter guide was released and it has been one of our most successful articles to date.
- We placed an emphasis on sharing material via YouTube and created seven video series totaling two hours of content. We kicked off '09 with a bang on the video front with Matt's "Virtual Blight" presentation.
- We launched GData APIs and iGoogle gadgets, allowing end users to access their data outside of Webmaster Tools in a way that makes sense to them.
- Managing a robots.txt file can be complicated, especially for first time webmasters, so we launched a robots.txt generator.
- In our effort to be more transparent and proactive, we enhanced our Message Center to send out messages such as the infinite spaces and hackable site warning notifications.
- To simplify the process of getting up and running on Webmaster Tools, we launched the Webmaster Tools Access Provider Program.
- To reduce frustration felt by users when trying to access a URL which does not exist on a site, we created a 404 widget.
- We enabled webmasters to view details of "404 Not Found" crawl errors.
- Sitemaps keep getting better, including integration with Custom Search Engine and simplified submissions.
- 4 new members of our product development team joined us in '08 to work on many of these efforts:
- Josh Teague, User Experience Designer, soon-to-be-dad, Southern gentleman
- Tanya Gupta, Software Engineer, passionate community services volunteer, thrill-seeking skydiver
- Pooja Shah, Software Engineer, nature lover, enthusiastic cook always looking to experiment
- Javier Tordable, Software Engineer and International Man of Mystery
16 comments:
I have two domains on Google's Webmaster Tools and the one I can got to verify by uploading a file, but the other even after uploading the file does not verify, I keep getting this error:
Verification status: NOT VERIFIED
Last attempt Jan 22, 2009: Our system has experienced a temporary problem.
A lot of people seem to have this problem, is there a fix?
I really enjoy reading all of googles blogs they never fail to keep me interested. Th webmaster central is a god send I hope to see more from you guys...
I really aprecciate to read your blog. We here from Brazil have learned a lot from your posts. When is possible take a look mine Curso de Informática à Distância. Antonio B Duarte Jr.
Some of these tools are great and I really think they are helpful. But, we still have a long way to go to open the communication channels between google and the webmasters.
For example, I have a perfectly fine site which is %100 spam free, no paid links, etc. There is some sort of google penalty imposed on my home page (at least I am guessing there is). I've submitted multiple reconsideration requests with no response.
If google is to stay successful, better communication needs to be opened with webmasters. This is a very frustrating experience. If there was something that google doesn't like about my site, I would immediately change it. Since there is absolutely zero webmaster/google communication, there is no way for me to tell what exactly is wrong.
@carlg You should post your site's URL in the Webmaster Help Forum:
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en
There are very knowledgeable people in the Forum who can help evaluate your site to see what's going on.
Thanks for the advice Jon. I already did that a few months ago. Nobody really had any great advice. I actually think my problem could be a google error (I could be wrong, but this is my only explanation) but, there is really no way to let them know.
I am so F* tired that Google is soon most biggest company, without "easy-way" to send feedback or contact. Of course comapny and "reason" messages, but whatta f* is wrong with Google... do they need more money?!
Webmaster tools and the Blog are 2 features I use a lot. It's an incredible help when you first set out to become a webmaster.
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to understand how google search engine works, and how to make sure my niche is being indexed, and (preferably) between the top 10.
There are so many variables, and although you do give hints as to what to focus on, it can be difficult to manage ALL the tasks needed.
As many holidays and special occasions as Google has celebrated by artistically modifying the Google logo, I'm a little disappointed that Google didn't have a special logo designed for Robert Burns' birthday - especially when it's the 250 anniversary of his birth. This is the man who wrote (among many things) "Auld Lang Syne" and "A Man's A Man For A' That."
Who dropped the ball??
Looks like google can't keep spam out of there own blog, but they can keep a NON-spammy, "Play by the rules" site out of serps!
I think there are some serious flaws in the algorithm!
Please, when considering cut backs in staffing include the artists and anyone who thinks it is cute to mess with the google name on the home page. Keep it simple.
With Kind Regards,
Pat
Your minimalist Friend
Google is the best company in the world with the best tools. We use them and recommend them for all of our clients. GoogleSmack!
Everyting in Google is "This site may harm your computer."
I have got pictures ;)
The SEO Starter Guide was good to see. Helps get over what is often seen to be the mystery of how it all works.
Thanks for the advice Jon. I already did that a few months ago. Nobody really had any great advice. I actually think my problem could be a google error (I could be wrong, but this is my only explanation) but, there is really no way to let them know.
Naveed | http://www.3rab-nar.com
Hi everyone,
Since over a year has passed since we published this post, we're closing the comments to help us focus on the work ahead. If you still have a question or comment you'd like to discuss, free to visit and/or post your topic in our Webmaster Central Help Forum.
Thanks and take care,
The Webmaster Central Team
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