Google Webmaster Central Blog - Official news on crawling and indexing sites for the Google index

Webmaster Tools gets a "Summer Shine"

Monday, July 20, 2009 at 3:30 PM

The Google Webmaster Tools team has code names for each update we release. Today's update is aptly named "Summer Shine".

Here are a few highlights:
  • Our site selector now lists all verified sites that you own, and allows you to search as you type.
  • You can now block non-homepage sitelinks. Before today if you owned example.com, you couldn't block sitelinks for example.com/email.
  • You can now see URL removal requests submitted by other users for any sites you own, and revoke them if necessary. In the past, if another webmaster for your site mistakenly removed a URL on your site and left for vacation it was a difficult process to undo the request.
  • Our "Home" page is much easier to navigate. We now make a clear distinction between verified and unverified sites.
We hope you like the improvements; tell us what you think.

The comments you read here belong only to the person who posted them. We do, however, reserve the right to remove off-topic comments.

45 comments:

Tinus said...

It looks good, don't get me wrong, but it just doesn't work very intuitive.

The main menu is smaller than the support menu. I can't recall how many times I clicked by accident on Sitemaps in the support menu.

Also, there are just 13 links in the main menu. Why make them collapsible? That only requires me to click more often. I really can't see the advantage of that.

Could you please have a look at that menu?

Nyro said...

Since this update I've got trouble to access webmaster tool with Firefox 3.5.1
Sometimes I'm getting a 502 error from your server, sometimes it's a FF error telling me that the redirection are going in an infinite loop. (it may be in other words, I'm using the French version)

Andre said...

Please, please, please bring back the sitemap error report on the webmaster tool landing page, not having this means having to go into all my sites and check - very time consuming and annoying.

Shailendra Dubey said...

Its look too good, especially the first feature is really needed.

Now from site selector it is easy to select another profile without leaving the navigation.

Алексей Александрович said...

С еовыми настройками гораздо легче пользоваться всеми прелестями гугла! Я очень рад что вы предоставляете столько возможностей для нас.

tw said...

The design is fluid, but like previous poster said- the help menu links need to look different so its clearer to the user as when i first logged in i clicked the link in help menu instead

Brian M said...

I agree with the font choice for the help menu - it could be a bit clearer.

Also, my sitelinks says that a sitelink is blocked "Effective until Jul 15, 2009" which is past due, so should I unblock it or not (it is an old, absurd error that is titled 'Cookies Not Accepted')?

simone.favaro said...

I can't access Webmaster tool personal page. It looks like broken link. Is it due the update?
Thanks for paying attention
Simone

WorkinginCanada.gc.ca said...

I can't access any Webmaster tool pages I did access before; only Help!!!
Never mind new look - just make it work, please...
Andrew

John said...

LOVE the new site selector! Simplifies navigation sigificantly for those of us with many sites.

Thank you for that.

Alan said...

I cant access my webmaster/tools page, IE 8 says canot not find page, and yes i connected to the web? IE recommends to repair my connection and finds nothing wrong after running Dino. I really would like to check my sites! It's been 48 hours. Please fix as i see i'm not the only person here with same issue. Thanks , Al

Ellie said...

I haven't been able to log in to Webmaster tools either since this update. I'm using FF 3.0.11. Not sure if it works ok with IE.

shaynorulz said...

New interface works in Chrome!!!...but Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage....error message!

Aaron said...

These tools have been extremely helpful in getting my new site http://computersystemworks.com ranked properly. It takes a lot of work and for simple sites such as my own it would be great if there was a way to expedite the crawling.

Perhaps someday :)

Jonathan Simon said...

Nyro, Simone, Andrew, Alan, Ellie, - If you clear your browser's cookies does this resolve the redirection issue that you mention?

Also if you have more details (browser type/version, operating system) please post them back here.

Brian Hancock said...

Experiencing the never-ending redirect issue in Firefox 3.0.1.1 =/

Alan said...

Jonathon, I cleared and cleaned and rebooted my vista 32 OS running IE8. My system is most up to date via windows update. I get a can not display page error from IE. Even when I try to repair he connection via windows sugestion, windows returns No problem detected, but obviously there is.. This issue started from the summer shine update, and I do not use chrome, but have it installed. Either way it will not diplay the google/wemasters/tools.com page.
Thanks, Alan

Numberplates.com said...

Can't access it from here either. There's a redirect loop.

"Firefox has detected that the server is redirecting the request for this address in a way that will never complete."

Alan said...

http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools is my exact url that it directs me to. Again, read my other post vista 32 IE8 windows cannot display page error

Jonathan Simon said...

Hey Guys,

Have you all confirmed that you've cleared you browser cookies before trying to sign-in?

Alan said...

I've cleaned and cleaned again, and rebooted. I noticed I hadn't installed the latest SP2 for vista. It's installing as we speak. I'll reboot and repost if if helps resolve the issue. Alan

Alan said...

OK, I installed SP2 Vista, rebooted cleaned all history from browser again and now I Can see my www.google.com/webmasters/tools page, it redirected and made me login again, but was able to connect to the page. My situation is resolved. Thanks Alan

Jonathan Simon said...

Excellent...glad to hear it's working for you now!

Numberplates.com said...

So anyone who hasn't installed Vista SP2 won't be able to use Webmaster Tools? And how many of them will actually read this blog? I think the problem needs to be sorted out at Google's end rather than thinking the problem is solved by getting two or three people to update their OS.

Alan said...

ATTN: Numberplates.com , I personally never said Vista SP2 Fixed my problem, However I post a series of events and steps I did to resolve the problem, rather than sit on my thumb and cry and wait for someone else to spoon feed my OS problems. The problem is because people bookmarked their webmaster tools page and after the page was revamped and placed online it caused cookie problems that were saved on each individuals computer that no longer matched the New page after summer shine and wouldn't load, So really the issue was Never Googles fault, It's our fault.
Can you clean your browser? I mean really clean it?? Do you know how? If your running vista, UNCHECK Preserve favorite website data and Check Most all others that are relevant. If that fails, I'd go buy a new computer.

Numberplates.com said...

Ah, it's our fault for bookmarking a page which no longer resolves... I get it. Nice to see Google practicing what they preach!

Nonetheless, I'll wipe my browser and lose my cookie data etc so I can view it.

Market Merchants said...

Same problem with Webmaster Tool using Firefox 3.5.1 Please fix.

Mark said...

What happened to the duplicate pages report?

Seems like a lot of stuff dissappeared in the makeover.

Carlos Lorenzo said...

The summer shine operation came up with a neat result. It is less obtrusive and logical. I have to agree with Tinus in the first comment, that the support menu misleads. I found myself clicking too many times on help items by mistake. But all in all I like the results. One more thing. I once changed the crawling rate of robots. I remember that. Under crawling rate, it says that my site has been assigned a special rate. I know. But shouldn't it remind me of the frequency I established and the day it is over? I can only guess when by a message you sent to my tray.

ithascome said...

Well I still can't get to webmaster tools... tryed everything... keep getting unable to display webpage message. Has the URL changed?

NewsBlaze said...

Can't access tools using IE today, but Firefox works! Also NewsBlaze no longer shows up as a News source. The new system seems to have lost some functionality. Some of the reports are improved, I like them, such as the search queries.

MehediBD.com said...

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Thanks
PHP Developer Bangladesh
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ithascome said...

It's working now! I can now get to the webmaster tools! the "summer shine" does not seem to be all that different. I thought it would be a major change.

Yall come visit my site sometime...
http://ithascome.bravehost.com

galesbury said...

Webmasters is really coming along, but there is an issue with this link (ironically) returns 404

FYI
http://www.google.com/webmasters/docs/search_engine_optimization_starter_guide_en.pdf

:)

clark said...

Thanks for updating the URL removal tool to deter both carelessness and the URL removal site "hack."

Divakar said...

This update will be very useful and I think the feature that all the webmasters of a particular site will able to see the URL removal request is the main powerful and useful feature of this update.

Master said...

Someone told me that Google doesnot displays the total no of backlinks. Even to the webmasters. Is it true?

http://www.onlinewebmarket.net/market-place/

ithascome said...

Master said...
Someone told me that Google doesnot displays the total no of backlinks. Even to the webmasters. Is it true?

Yes...

Yall come visit my site sometime...
http://ithascome.bravehost.com

Aan Cahyono said...

my name Aan Cahyono
I've learned to create a blog, what is the need to blog, that is the index by search engines? please let know what is less in my blog? please look at:

http:/paidfrominternet.blogspot.com
http://andcay.blogspot.com

News Blog said...

Nice Post
Gay

Furqan said...

Is tgere any way can you tell the webmaster what they are doing wrong in terms of SEO.

I am trying to make my websites SEO friendly as much as possible but the rank of my website is not going up in that way it should go.

If you will bring some tool on board it will help all of us to see where we are going wrong!

Thanks

O_range_range said...

I have difficultly about SEO for blog. Thanks for help.

S.Pradeep Kumar said...

Really nice to see such improvements.. kudos to Google Team..

nev said...

THIS WEBPAGE HAS A REDIRECT LOOP !

Getting ready to put my foot through the darn computer screen !

Anyone got time to help me PLEASE ?

Thanx,

Revboy888, (Nev.)

Google Webmaster Central said...

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