Wednesday, June 10, 2009 at 5:00 PM
Webmaster Level: All
We launched a preview of our new Webmaster Tools interface three weeks ago, and received a lot of valuable feedback. Most of you liked the update, appreciating features such as the one-stop dashboard, more top search query data, and the improved menu and navigation.
You offered some constructive feedback as well:
- You missed the option to switch listing 25, 50, or 100 rows in features such as links to your site. We did not add the option back to select how many rows you would like to see but increased our default to 100!
- Top search query information differed between the old and new versions. We expected this since we went through a lot of re-engineering to improve the new top search queries backend. We reviewed many of the issues posted on our forums, and verified that the new backend is far more accurate and reliable.
- Initially, the Sitemaps downloaded and indexed URL counts differed between the two versions. We resolved this issue quickly.
- Backlinks numbers between the old and the new user interface (UI) may differ since our new UI shows the original anchor (not following redirects) as it's linked on the web. Let's say example.com links to http://google.com, then http://google.com 301s to http://www.google.com/:
- In the new UI -- only verified site owners of google.com will see examples.com's backlink (because we show the original link prior to any redirects)
- In the old UI -- verified site owners of www.google.com could see example.com's backlink
- The new site switcher lists only five sites, and some of you who manage a large number of sites found this limiting. We appreciate the feedback and will work on addressing this limitation in a future release.
From today, only the new user interface will be available (http://google.com/webmasters/tools)! You'll see that in addition to fixing many of the issues users addressed, we took some time to launch a new feature: Change of Address. The Change of Address feature lets you notify Google when you are moving from one domain to another, enabling us to update our index faster and hopefully creating a smoother transition for your users.
Thanks to all the users that took time to give us feedback on the new user interface. To those users using it for the first time today, we hope you enjoy it. As always, your feedback is appreciated.
60 comments:
I suspect lots of people, like myself, have bookmarked this URL:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/siteoverview
It might be a good idea to add a redirect for that URL to the new one.
Change of address would be more helpful if it allowed me to tell Google that VKitty.co.cc is now located at VKitty.net, and I'm sure other people would like to tell Google about their subdomain (free hosting or a co.cc/co.nr type thing) moving to a real domain.
Very nice to see - It changed on me right in the middle of a WMT session and caught me by surprise... how cool ;)
http://www.pdxtc.com/wpblog/google/google-change-of-address-kit/
Hello,
Adding sitemap does not work. It redirects to me to the dashboard with all websites.
There is no stept in adding a sitemap index file.
Other question: Since when the maximul number of lines in a sitemap is 10000K and the filesize in 10M. Is it true?
@dalmy, can you provide the site and sitemap you are trying to submit so we can take a look.
The limits you mentioned have always been in place.
Can we also have the change of address function changed to "change of permalink structure"
Sometimes sites make quite radical internal structure changes, and it would be useful to notify Google of that.
@Andy, appreciate the feedback. I'll take it back to the team.
@Andy, appreciate the feedback. I'll take it back to the team.
After my site was recently included in DMOZ, I watched my links start to rise to a 'dizzy' 31. A new, and from my point of view not-needed, WMT shows 2 links. I'll have to go -I think I'm going to burst a blood vessel.
sacalante says
google and youtube
count with us the next four to ten years in the internet leadership both ceos give us all aps for free to the users not to the costumers as others web companies
make us proud is and idea no (tm) from google ceo and youtube.com/areweawebfamily is my idea for web surf safely supported for the two companies with non profit gain
this is a real family into the web
we have to keep improvement our abbilities as users,its, developers and let this companies get more followers to keep making more cheap the applications (aps) they give us
warm regards
#sagar
Either I try to submit http://www.imopedia.ro/usr/sitemaps/oferte/sitemapindex.xml - the index sitemap or the sitemap http://www.imopedia.ro/usr/sitemaps/oferte/sitemap_oferte_2007_10.xml I am redirected to the page where I have the list of website and I have a message with "You haven't verified this site" (attached).When I click on this message it dissapears.
I remember that there where maximum 50.000 urls or 10-15Mb per sitemap
The domain switching tool sounds great. I don't change domain so often, but I'll keep it on mind.
Thanks for your effots - as usual..
A Change of Address feature - hallelujah!
This is a big deal for site owners and a great addition.
If only this had come out 6 months ago we might have avoided our roller coaster ride with our site migration (full story at http://econsultancy.com/blog/3244-econsultancy-site-migration-and-seo-impact-the-story-so-far) and roller coaster ride graph of our SEO traffic showing the impact at http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3408/3616265660_f5949984b4_o.png
Ashley
Ashley Friedlein
CEO
Econsultancy.com
http://econsultancy.com
Really like the new change of address feature. I've been agonizing over changing a domain name and loosing rank.
Is there a "new" Webmaster Tools gadget? (Or has the "old" Webmaster Tools gadget been eliminated?)
Error on New UI. NOt able to Submit the Sitemap. It Takes to the homepage with out submitting the sitemap and the Message Says NOt verified Verify NOw. When we click on Verify NOw it again load the homepage.
IT never works adding a new sitemap on my account http://www.moneycontrol.com
The main problem is that you have not prepared feedback form where anyone can submit discovered bugs or suggestions in new layout. I tested it a bit when you made it public and found bug. Unfortunately I was not able to find feedback form, so it still exists: you don't encode html entities on page listing most popular keywords. Result - html tag used as a keyword is not displaued at all.
@dalmy, we will look into the issue.
@paul, we will be adding the gadgets in the new UI shortly.
@sirzorro, you can post your issues on our help forum. We actively monitor it.
http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en
Yep, I picked the wrong day to start using sitemaps. I see the same bug as dalmy. I'm verified, but adding a sitemap gets me the need-to-verify message. Gonna add my sitemap using robots.txt for now.
but, the new interface never accept my sitemap. why?
is that because of the .cfm file?
thanks ^^
@george, can you provide the URL to your site?
i want to ask why? why would you change something thats working very well and replaced it by an interface too complicated and actually it does not work . this afternoon i tried to submit a new site map for my web site : www.marocvoyage.net and i have the same problem like dalmy and joana. please help me because i'm this close to lose my mind and if you can retourn the old interface it was much much better and thanks for all your efforts.
"What GoogleBot sees" - was REMOVED???
WHY ??????
WHY change a perfectly good thing?
I NEVER get that?
Nothing wrong with the previous version but this version is much much worse!
Seriously.
Please bring back: "What Googlebot sees"
- with both internal and external data. Just as before. Please! Thank you.
@hgil, what googlebot sees was not removed. We moved things around:
To see frequently occurring words on your site, and get insight into how your content appears to Google, click Your site on the web, and then click Keywords.
To see how other sites link to you, click Links to your site (under Your site on the web), and then click Anchor text.
We no longer list content information, such as distribution of file type or encoding information.
Nice bit of information. :-)
New version now doesnt work with mobile, i tired use opera mini to add my site,,, how some people works with mobile to add site????????
I hate the new version
Please bring back the old one
There is a saying "If it aint broke dont fix it"
On the old version I could see all the links to my site, with the new version this has decreased.
How do I get the new version to show all the links to my site??
It wouldn't hurt to add some graphics and design to it ! For now it looks like one of those 1990's sites with text only :)
Is the new webmast tools layout the reason that my iGoogle webmaster wigets have stopped working for the past week???
Yes Fred. We are working on the iGoogle issue. Hope to have a fix in the next few days.
With the old WMT my site's verification code was recognised. The new WMT asked me to verify my site again and now can't find the code. I changed the code to the one it now asked me to put in my header. I use Office Live and have been using the code:
%22%20%2F%3E%3Cmeta name=%22verify-v1%22 content=%224zUNDEoXvOTr1+zDoBEOKCts=
(some letter removed from the code itself for security)
I put it in the page properties->SEO box before the keywords. Why can't google find it? I checked, it's the correct code
@alex, can you provide a URL to your site so we can take a look?
Are backlinks listed correctly?
In the article you stated that we could se a difference, between the old and new version. but I cannot believe what I'm seeing.
One of my website, which should have lost backlinks in the past five weeks, since the update has increased by 50% the number of them.
An other one which should have increased the number a lot has lost 80% of it's backlinks since new version of WMT. What is very strange is that I saw no change in SERP for both sites?
Any idea about what is going on?
thanks, PT
How does this work into the guidelines released in April that say to move your site in phases? Are you supposed to wait until the last phase and THEN update GWT?
@Nadia, once you have set up all your 301s correctly you should fill in our change of address form.
Any plans to fix the iGoogle plugins for webmaster tools?
Every day all sitemaps (I handle only six webistes) show as submitted current day with no pages indexed. Site:www.xy.com always shows the pages are indexed but not there.
@Angry_Granny, can you post your issue on our forum so we can take a look: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en
@PM, the iGoogle plugins should now be working. If you are having issues, can you please put them on our forum: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters?hl=en
i have the same issue of Angry Granny, i think that the new version does not index any thing from the site map submitted. and another thing wy web site:
http://www.marocvoyage.net
was indexed verry well in google results but after the update it doesn't appear in google search results, it's a french web site for this it was indexed in google.fr, please sagar could you check what's the problem. thanks any way
i'm sorry but i have another issue, may back links are gone, is there a chance that you fix this. thanks
Any news on my site, firther to my previous comments? http://www.zarach-interiors.co.uk is an Office Live site and the specific instructions on verification tags don't work, i.e Google can't find the tags
@Neil, have you tried the instructions on our Knol:
http://knol.google.com/k/anonymous/google-webmaster-tools-verification/qnlwdssh37lo/1#Verifying_on_Microsoft_Office_Live
Don't know if it is coincidence or cause, but several of my sites are no longer being indexed by Google since the new interface was instigated.
Sitemaps get an error (Big Red X)
and robots.txt = robots.txt unreachable
Nothing in my .htaccess is blocking google, and the googlebot is not showing up in my server logs.
I asked my hosting provider if googlebot or any other spiders were being blocked, but he said no.
Here are a couple of examples:
http://www.asianteez.com
http://www.chocolatelover.net
See anything?
Thx.
I am using webmasters tools since long time but when I needed to see the page rank allocation information and managing the site links I was unable to find. Are they gone or placed somewhere else?
@Rick - The robots.txt files (for the sites you mention) are not currently accessible by Google. If we can't access your robots.txt files then we can't confirm whether you've allowed or disallowed your site for crawling, thus we will not crawl. You should contact your hosting provider again and request that they double check the ability of Googlebot (Google's crawler) to crawl your sites and their associated robots.txt files.
Here is an article that provides more information on how to do this:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2006/09/how-to-verify-googlebot.html
@MBAF - The page rank allocation information can be found towards the bottom of the "Crawl Stats" page under the "Diagnostics" section of Webmaster Tools. You can manage your Sitelinks on the "Sitelinks" page under the "Site Configuration" section.
I had hoped that the change of address tool would make transition to a new domain simple but it has been anything but. I put 301's in place from all of our old pages to ones on the new site and that worked fine - still does in fact but when I submitted the change of address Google changed the domain name on the references in its index and effectively bypased all of the 301's and is now churning out 404's for just about every page on my site. We have gone back through an put redirections on most of the pages so they go somewhere again but my pagerank is now zero after having been 4 for many years. Somewhat dissapointing. The old site was http://www.flymetothemoon.com.au and the new site is http://brisbanehotairballoning.com.au
i recently changed my permalink structure and also updated my sitemap accordingly.I also resubmitted my sitemap to google in webmasters.Now it shows just 1 indexed url,that is my home page.Rest all 68 urls are gone.I have 301 redirects so it doesnt matter for a lot of already indexed urls but the new ones are not getting indexed.
What to do ?
my url is http://themanmeetsabharwalblog.com.
Hi,
I have used the 'change of address' function in Webmaster Tools - but perhaps I have used it in the wrong circumstances... or perhaps there is a mistake? Please can you clarify and suggest an avenue forward...
I have a website: www.dtecta.co.uk which I am planning on closing in next couple of weeks.
It will be replaced by www.optibacprobiotics.co.uk.
I will do a 301 redirect from dtecta.co.uk to optibacprobiotics.co.uk when the time is right!
However (in haste perhaps) I submitted this to WBT as a 'change of address' and now all the old URLs that existed for dtecta.co.uk are appearing in Google searches for optibacprobiotics.co.uk
e.g. we had the following pages for dtecta.co.uk:
http://www.dtecta.co.uk/probiostart.html
http://www.dtecta.co.uk/antibloat.html
In Google, I am now getting listings in the new site as:
http://www.optibacprobiotics.co.uk/probiostart.html
http://www.optibacprobiotics.co.uk/antibloat.html
However - I don't actually have these pages on the new site!
As well as a brand name change (DTECTA to OptiBac) the product pages have changed as well - so there are no URLs for /antibloat.html or /probiostart.html
Changing address on WBT is the only way that I can perceive these occured...
Do you agree?
Is this possible?
Should I not use the 'change of address' function for this purpose?
Any help much appreciated!
Many thanks
It seems like the recent change to allow a mobile version of Custom Search has negatively impacted my site when viewed on a mobile device.
I am referring to this article:
http://googlecustomsearch.blogspot.com/2009/10/google-custom-search-for-your.html
MY WEBSITE: Haggle - Price Check
URL: http://www.hagoole.com.au/
The Search Results use to be controlled by the standard Search Box as it is currently displayed when viewed on a computer... but when the site is now viewed on a Mobile device Google seems to change the way the results are displayed by overriding my Search Box results with the Custom Search Element.
This has negatively affected the Mobile display of my site :(
Is there anyway of stopping this new Custom Search Element override?
thanku
We have started a similar, but slightly more of a straightforward (at least I think) domain name change in June, 2009.
We wanted to change our domain name for a while but were very concerned with loosing our natural rankings. As soon as we saw the new option for "Change of Address" in webmaster tools, we decided that we can finally proceed with no or minimum risk since Google has finally addressed this issue...
Well, so we thought…. We went straight by the book:
1. Made an exact copy of the site on the new domain
2. 301 redirected every single page from the old domain to it's exact twin on the new domain
3. Clicked on the "Magic" Change of Address button
4. Even updated many links pointing to us, to the new domain/pages
5. Continued SEO campaigns on the new domain
We are couple of days away from the 180 days period now, and most our keywords did not recover their positions.
Just to be safe, we even sent over "site reconsideration" request to make sure we are not banned. There was no negative response so being "banned" should be of the equation.. Plus we are seeing certain queries recovering. Very small number, and not as high though.
These are the exact words from Google for “MOVING YOUR SITE” that state the most important thing – “retain your site's ranking”
“If you're planning on moving your site to a new domain, here are some tips that will help you retain your site's ranking in Google's search results.”
Once again, we went straight by the book, and are still suffering.
That's cool.
What about subdomain to domain change of address? ex: mysite.provider.com to mysite.com?
@gt3 I have the same question. Currently I am hosting my blog through blogger, so naturally I receive a subdomain as the address (karnbulsuk.blogspot.com). I just bought a domain name, and will migrate the blog to blog.bulsuk.com.
The problem is, this function doesn't work with subdomains...is there any way to make sure the migration goes well without losing all the search rankings and such, some sort of work-around?
Hi
I am the SEO of http://www.mountorama.com/ and I have been using parameter handling to Ignore parameter for last 2 months but I still see pages catched with session IDs,mode,manufacturer1 and other many parameter .
For example I have been seen many url still in it.
http://www.mountorama.com/hdmi-cables.html?SID=1162b3e708d3cb4bded8101b054ed560&mode=grid&special_price=2%2C10&price=1%2C10&manufacturer1=102
And I am also using rel=”cannonical” but I am seeing duplicate url.
I want to know how effective is parameter handling and how to remove url catched with session IDs
Regards
Amit Kumar Gupta
SEO
I think this feature really hurt our site. We moved a site to a folder of another one but since you cannot change the address to a folder we used the root domain. It's been a month and the moved site is nowhere to be found in Google. Instead the root site is showing up. We've removed the change of address but I don't know how long it's going to take to undo this damage.
We recently migrated our site from a co.sz to a .com TLD domain, and I was unable to complete my change of address through webmaster tools. I keep receiving the following message:
"Setting is restricted to root level domains only"
The .co.sz is the root domain. Can you please help? Is there anyway this can be changed in webmaster tools?
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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