WebProNews

Tag: Search Console

  • Google Brings Back Validate Fix Button in Search Console

    Google Brings Back Validate Fix Button in Search Console

    Google has brought back the validate fix button in its Google Search Console after it disabled it earlier this month for upgrades.

    Google disabled the validate fix feature earlier in August in order to add in item classification features. According to Search Engine Land, the search giant has brought back the feature alongside its new additions:

    Now when you go into Google Search Console and click on some of the coverage reports, the “validate fix” button should be back. Google disabled it while upgrading the classification system. There was a notice that read “Limited functionality: We are making some minor updates in the next few days. During this period you will not be able to issue new validation requests.” That notice has been removed and you now have the validate fix feature back.

    While some may prefer the older validate fix, the newer classification feature provides similar information in a simpler, more streamlined manner. Google described the benefits in their initial blog post detailing the change:

    We are grouping the top-level item (a rich result for the rich result reports, a page or URL for the other reports) into two groups: pages or items with critical issues are labeled something like invalid; pages or items without critical issues are labeled something like valid. We think this new grouping will make it easier to see quickly which issues affect your site’s appearance on Google, in order to help you prioritize your fixes. Read more about how this change will affect each of the reports in the Help Center.

  • Google Search Console Now Has Page Experience For Desktop

    Google Search Console Now Has Page Experience For Desktop

    Google has unveiled a dedicated ‘Desktop’ section in the Page Experience reports of its Search Console.

    Google had already rolled Page Experience for mobile, but is now adding the feature for desktop, and will soon use it as part of its desktop ranking system.

    We’ll begin using page experience as part of our desktop ranking systems beginning in February 2022. The rollout will be complete by the end of March 2022. This ranking launch will be based on the same page experience signals that we rolled out for mobile earlier this year. We are also planning to help site owners understand how their desktop pages are performing with regards to page experience using a Search Console report which will launch before desktop becomes a ranking signal. 

    To help companies prepare for the changes, the company has provided additional information to help them optimize their sites.

  • Some Users Can’t Access Google Search Console

    Some Users Can’t Access Google Search Console

    Google appears to be having an issue with Search Console, as many users are reporting trouble accessing it.

    It’s been a bad couple of weeks for outages, with AWS reporting two different issues that impacted a wide range of websites and service. Now Google appears to be having some issues of its own, with users having trouble accessing the Google Search Console, according to Search Engine Land.

    Google has acknowledged the issue and says they are working on a fix.

  • Google Changes Search Console Algorithm for Counting Image Impressions

    Google Changes Search Console Algorithm for Counting Image Impressions

    Google has announced a change to how image impressions are counted in Search Console, effective April 6.

    According to the company, the algorithm for counting image impressions has been adjusted, and adjustment that could lead to a drop in numbers.

    Search Console improved the algorithm for counting image impressions in Search results. As a result, you may see a small drop in your image impressions in Search. This is not a drop in actual impressions, just a more accurate calculation of image impressions when type=image is specified in the Search Performance report.

    As Google highlights, this doesn’t mean the actual impressions are down, just how they’re being counted. This will also not impact rankings in any way.

    The notice should offer some peace of mind to webmasters wondering why their numbers were dropping after April 6.

  • Google Improved Index Coverage Report

    Google Improved Index Coverage Report

    Google has rolled out an update to its Index Coverage report, bringing some significant improvements based on user feedback.

    The Index Coverage report is part of the revamped Search Console. It provides valuable insights into how Google is indexing the various pages of a website. The information is especially helpful to webmasters, giving them a way to track down and identify potential issues.

    Google revamped Index Coverage report to make it even more useful.

    Based on the feedback we got from the community, today we are rolling out significant improvements to this report so you’re better informed on issues that might prevent Google from crawling and indexing your pages. The change is focused on providing a more accurate state to existing issues, which should help you solve them more easily.

    Specifically, the improvements include:

    Removal of the generic “crawl anomaly” issue type – all crawls errors should now be mapped to an issue with a finer resolution.

    Pages that were submitted but blocked by robots.txt and got indexed are now reported as “indexed but blocked” (warning) instead of “submitted but blocked” (error)

    Addition of a new issue: “indexed without content” (warning)

    Soft 404 reporting is now more accurate

    The changes should be a welcome improvement for website operators.

  • Google Search Console Introduces ‘Property Sets’

    Google Search Console Introduces ‘Property Sets’

    Google has launched ‘Property Sets’ within their Search Console allowing webmasters to combine apps and sites within a single group in order to monitor overall clicks and impressions within a single report. It will be rolling out to all users over the next couple of days. This is a great feature for those that have many subdomains as well.

    Screen Shot 2016-05-23 at 8.22.51 AM

    Google provides these instructions to get started:

    1. Create a property set
    2. Add the properties you’re interested in
    3. The data will start being collected within a few days
    4. Profit from the new insights in Search Analytics!

    Google adds:

    Property Sets will treat all URIs from the properties included as a single presence in the Search Analytics feature. This means that Search Analytics metrics aggregated by host will be aggregated across all properties included in the set. For example, at a glance you’ll get the clicks and impressions of any of the sites in the set for all queries.

    This feature will work for any kind of property in Search Console. Use it to gain an overview of your international websites, of mixed HTTP / HTTPS sites, of different departments or brands that run separate websites, or monitor the Search Analytics of all your apps together: all of that’s possible with this feature.

  • Google Penalizes Sites For Unnatural Links

    Google Penalizes Sites For Unnatural Links

    Google reportedly handed out a bunch of penalties over the weekend for unnatural outbound links. These are unnatural links going from your site to others.

    According to Search Engine Land, many of these were issued over the weekend, but it’s unclear if there were many for unnatural inbound links (as in the sites being linked to by the links in question).

    While Google hasn’t issued a statement, a lot of webmasters have reportedly received the messages in Search Console.

    In the Google Search Console help center, Google displays this video discussing what it means by unnatural links from your site:

    The video is nearly three years old, so presumably not much has changed here in terms of how Google defines this penalty. On the same page, Google has this to say about it:

    If you see this message on the Manual Actions page, it means that Google has detected a pattern of unnatural artificial, deceptive, or manipulative outbound links. Buying links or participating in link schemes in order to manipulate PageRank is a violation of Google’s Webmaster Guidelines.

    As a result, Google has applied a manual spam action to the affected portions of your site. Actions that affect your whole site are listed under Site-wide matches. Actions that affect only part of your site and/or some incoming links to your site are listed under Partial matches.

    Over at Search Engine Roundtable, there are six links to different threads in Google’s forums with people complaining about the penalty.

    Image via iStock

  • Google Sends Search Console Messages About AMP

    Google Sends Search Console Messages About AMP

    Google is starting to send some publishers messages about AMP in Search Console.

    G-Squared Interactive digital marketing consultant Glenn Gabe shared a screenshot on Twitter (via Search Engine Roundtable) showing what it looks like. It tells publishers:

    Google has detected that news content on your site might benefit from enhanced exposure on Google Search if you implement Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)…

    Google will begin sending search traffic to AMP pages next month.

    Earlier this week, Google announced Google Analytics support for AMP and that AMP will support most ad-serving scenarios at launch.

    Image via Google

  • Google Search Console Adds AMP Error Reports

    Google Search Console Adds AMP Error Reports

    Google announced that it is providing a preview of error reports for Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) in Search Console. This will help sites get ready for the official launch next month.

    The reports can be found under Search Appearance – Accelerated Mobile Pages.

    “The goal here is to make it easier to spot issues in your AMP implementation across the whole website,” says Google’s John Mueller. “In order to get started with AMP on Google Search, you’ll need to create matching, valid AMP pages where relevant, ensure that they use the NewsArticle schema.org markup, and link them appropriately.”

    “The AMP error report gives an overview of the overall situation on your site, and then lets you drill down to specific error types and URLs,” he adds. “This process helps you quickly find the most common issues, so that you can systematically address them in your site’s AMP implementation (potentially just requiring tweaks in the templates or plugin used for these pages).”

    You can see a demo preview of AMP in search here. There’s also a guide to getting started here. Google also recently announced that it has been improving its documentation to make it easer for sites to implement AMP more quickly.

    Earlier this month, Google invited webmasters using AMP to apply to be beta-testers to provide feedback on related Search Console features.

    Images via John Mueller, Google+

  • Google Seeks Search Console Messaging Guidance

    Earlier this week, Google announced that over the coming weeks it will change the way it sends messages in Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools) and to whom it sends them.

    The company is also looking for feedback from webmasters to consider for other potential changes. Google’s Mariya Moeva wrote in a Google+ post (via Search Engine Roundtable), “How do you use Search Console messages? We want to hear from you. Crawl errors alerts, new owner confirmations, malware warnings… We send a bunch of messages to site and app owners, and we’d like to understand how to improve the type of information we share with you. Let us know how you interact with our messages and how you’d like us to improve them.”

    She pointed to a Google survey called “How do you use Search Console messages?”.

    The survey asks you to select your role between SEO, webmaster, developer, marketer, website owner, product owner/traffic acquisition specialist, and other. It then asks how many sites you manage, how many messages you receive in a week, and if you read any of them.

    It goes on to ask where you read your messages, which ones you act on, which ones you ignore, why you skip them, etc.

    For more on the changes Google has already announced, read this.

    Google recently put out another webmaster survey about Search Console asking people about combining sites. Of course Google seeking ideas from the webmaster community has been going on for years.

    Image via Google

  • Google Search Console Gets App Indexing-Friendly

    Google Search Console Gets App Indexing-Friendly

    Earlier this week, Google announced that it has rebranded Google Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console. The company did not announce any new features to accompany the name change, but it didn’t take them long to unveil the first updates to the product under the new brand.

    On Friday, Google announced the addition of new reports to show how Google understands and treats app content in search results. If you have an Android app, you can open Search Console, and enter your app name. You’ll have to use your Google Play account to let it know you have access to the app. If you don’t, you’ll need to ask the owner to verify it and add you. You’ll also have to associate your site with your app, which is required for App Indexing to work. Google notes that it also helps with understanding and ranking app content better.

    There’s a new Search Analytics report, which shows detailed info on top queries, app pages, and traffic by country. It includes a “comprehensive” set of filters so you can narrow down to a specific query type or region, or sort by clicks, impressions, CTR, and positions.

    “Use the Search Analytics report to compare which app content you consider most important with the content that actually shows up in search and gets the most clicks,” Google writes in a blog post. “If they match, you’re on the right track! Your users are finding and liking what you want them to see. If there’s little overlap, you may need to restructure your navigation, or make the most important content easier to find. Also worth checking in this case: have you provided deep links to all the app content you want your users to find?”

    The Crawl Errors report will show the type and number of errors it detects with your app content. There’s also a new alpha version of the Fetch as Google tool for apps to let you see if an app URI works and how Google renders it.

    “It can also be useful for comparing the app content with the webpage content to debug errors such as content mismatch,” says Google. “In many cases, the mismatch errors are caused by blocked resources within the app or by pop-ups asking users to sign in or register. Now you can see and resolve these issues.”

    Google announced app indexing as a ranking signal earlier this year at the same time it announced its mobile-friendly update. It just went into effect earlier. At first it was only for signed in mobile users who had the apps installed on their devices. Google has since expanded the signal to include all Android users. It said in April it had indexed 30 billion links within apps.

    READ: How To Set Up App Indexing For Ranking In Google

    Images via Google

  • Google Webmaster Tools Changed To Google Search Console

    Google Webmaster Tools Changed To Google Search Console

    Recognizing that a lot of different types of people use Webmaster Tools beyond just traditional webmasters, Google has decided to rebrand its popular product to reflect that. From now on, Google Webmaster Tools will be known as Google Search Console. Here’s the logo:

    “For nearly ten years, Google Webmaster Tools has provided users with constantly evolving tools and metrics to help make fantastic websites that our systems love showing in Google Search,” wrote product manager Michael Fink in a blog post. “In the past year, we sought to learn more about you, the loyal users of Google Webmaster Tools: we wanted to understand your role and goals in order to make our product more useful to you.”

    “It turns out that the traditional idea of the ‘webmaster’ reflects only some of you,” he added. “We have all kinds of Webmaster Tools fans: hobbyists, small business owners, SEO experts, marketers, programmers, designers, app developers, and, of course, webmasters as well. What you all share is a desire to make your work available online, and to make it findable through Google Search. So, to make sure that our product includes everyone who cares about Search, we’ve decided to rebrand Google Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console.”

    Google did not announce any new features beyond the rebranding.

    Google webmaster trends analyst John Muller had this to say on Google+:

    I remember … back when Google Webmaster Tools first launched as a way of submitting sitemap files. It’s had an awesome run, the teams have brought it a long way over the years. It turns out that the traditional idea of the “webmaster” reflects only some of you. We have all kinds of Webmaster Tools fans: hobbyists, small business owners, SEO experts, marketers, programmers, designers, app developers, and, of course, webmasters as well. So, to make sure that our product includes everyone who cares about Search, we’ve decided to rebrand Google Webmaster Tools as Google Search Console .

    The rebranding does seem much more user-friendly than the term Webmaster Tools, which some with limited web experience may have found a little intimidating. In an era where businesses must have and maintain a web presence, the offering is more important than ever, and the rebranding could just lead to more businesses utilizing the Webmaster Tools features.

    Image via Google