Category Archives: Google Webmaster Central Blog

Official news on crawling and indexing sites for the Google index

Google Search News for November 2019

The ecosystem around and in Google Search has continued to evolve since the first episode of Google Search News. With this video series, we aim to give regular updates on Google Search, in particular for SEOs, publishers, webmasters -- essentially anyone who's creating content with the goal of making it discoverable in search. 

In this episode, we cover:

We hope you find these updates useful! Let us know in the video comments if there's something we can improve on.

Posted by John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google Switzerland

New reporting for Products Results in Search Console

We recently announced that in addition to schema.org markup, product data feeds submitted through Google Merchant Center and Google Manufacturer Center will be used to enrich Google Search shopping journeys. Today, we are announcing a new Search Appearance in the Search Console Performance report, which captures search stats for Product rich results on Google Search.

People come to Google to discover, research, and decide which products and brands to purchase. In order to provide helpful product information to shoppers, Google shows rich product data like product descriptions, price and availability within the search results.

Image: Rich product information on Google Search results

Website owners need to understand the impact of these rich results. The Google Search Console Performance report provides key metrics like clicks and impressions to help webmasters understand and optimize the performance of their website results on Google Search. These metrics can further be segmented by device, geography and queries.

If your website is eligible to appear on Product search results, you’ll find a new Search Appearance type called “Product results”, with which you can segment your traffic to analyze your search performance.

Image: Search Appearance of “Product results”

The new ‘Product results’ search appearance (shown in the screenshot above) will help website owners understand their search performance for product rich results. For example, they’ll be able to answer the following questions:

  • How much traffic comes from experiences with rich data like price, availability?
  • How does shopping traffic change over time, and for what shopping search queries is the website shown?

If you have any questions on this (or other) Search Console reports, let us know through the forum or on Twitter.

Posted by Siddhartha Garg, Product Manager

Get faster with the new Speed report in Search Console

A fast web experience has long been an important user experience factor that we have promoted and advocated for. To help site owners on this quest we showed a preview of the Speed report in Search Console at Google I/O 2019. Since then, we've been iterating on all the great feedback from the beta testers and, starting today, are excited to begin public rollout!

Discovering potential user experience problems can be hard, especially on sites with many pages. To help site owners, the Speed report automatically assigns groups of similar URLs into "Fast", "Moderate", and "Slow" buckets. The data is based on the Chrome User Experience Report, which provides user experience metrics for how real-world Chrome users experience popular destinations on the web.

Image: Speed report overview
The report classifies URLs by speed and the issue that causes any slowdowns. Drill down on a specific issue to see examples of slow URLs to help you prioritize performance improvements for them. To get a better sense of what type of optimization can be performed for a specific URL, the report links to the Page Speed Insight tool, which provides information on specific optimization opportunities.

You should use this report both for monitoring your performance over time and for tracking fixes you made to your website. If you fix an issue, use the report to track whether users experienced a performance improvement when browsing the fixed version of your website.

To help you understand how your site is performing, you can also see what types of URLs are doing better by checking the moderate and fast buckets.

Image: URLs in the fast bucket

This new report is classified as "experimental" as we plan to continue to iterate and improve the metrics and recommendations for site owners. We will monitor feedback submitted directly through the report and in the user forum to ensure that it is useful and helpful, so please let us know how we are doing.

Posted By Sion Schori & Amir Rachum, Software Engineers

Get faster with the new Speed report in Search Console

A fast web experience has long been an important user experience factor that we have promoted and advocated for. To help site owners on this quest we showed a preview of the Speed report in Search Console at Google I/O 2019. Since then, we've been iterating on all the great feedback from the beta testers and, starting today, are excited to begin public rollout!

Discovering potential user experience problems can be hard, especially on sites with many pages. To help site owners, the Speed report automatically assigns groups of similar URLs into "Fast", "Moderate", and "Slow" buckets. The data is based on the Chrome User Experience Report, which provides user experience metrics for how real-world Chrome users experience popular destinations on the web.

Image: Speed report overview
The report classifies URLs by speed and the issue that causes any slowdowns. Drill down on a specific issue to see examples of slow URLs to help you prioritize performance improvements for them. To get a better sense of what type of optimization can be performed for a specific URL, the report links to the Page Speed Insight tool, which provides information on specific optimization opportunities.

You should use this report both for monitoring your performance over time and for tracking fixes you made to your website. If you fix an issue, use the report to track whether users experienced a performance improvement when browsing the fixed version of your website.

To help you understand how your site is performing, you can also see what types of URLs are doing better by checking the moderate and fast buckets.

Image: URLs in the fast bucket

This new report is classified as "experimental" as we plan to continue to iterate and improve the metrics and recommendations for site owners. We will monitor feedback submitted directly through the report and in the user forum to ensure that it is useful and helpful, so please let us know how we are doing.

Posted By Sion Schori & Amir Rachum, Software Engineers

Site Kit is now available for all WordPress sites

Today, we're announcing that Site Kit is available for everyone to install from the WordPress plugin directory. Site Kit is Google's official WordPress plugin — it gives you insights on how people find and use your site, how to improve and monetize your content, with data from multiple Google tools. Learn more about Site Kit on the official Site Kit website.

Who is Site Kit for?


Site Kit makes it easy for WordPress site owners to understand how their site is doing and what to do next. As a WordPress site owner, Site Kit offers you:
  • Easy to verify site ownership through Search Console — no need to paste a code snippet on your site to prove you're an owner.
  • Convenient and easy access to relevant stats directly in your WordPress dashboard. We save you time — see the key information right when you sign in.
  • Cross-product insights — Google Search Console, Google Analytics, PageSpeed Insights, AdSense — are combined into a single, intuitive dashboard. We help you make informed decisions, quickly.
  • No source code editing. This is the easiest way to install and manage Google products on your site in just a few clicks.
If you are a developer or an agency working on WordPress sites for clients, Site Kit can make your life easier:
  • You’ll get aggregated insights from Google products, distilled in a dashboard that your clients or other teams can easily access. No need to copy data from multiple products to compile reports for clients.
  • The site performance stats and improvement recommendations come directly from Google — your customers will be getting the latest best practices recommended by Google products.
  • Site Kit provides roles and permissions to help you manage access to the site’s data and make sure only the relevant people can see stats from Google products.
If you work on a plugin or hosting provider, Site Kit provides a scalable, easy way for your users to provision and access key Google tools and metrics.
  • Easy connection to official Google tools. Your customers don’t have to edit the source code to set up Google tools.
  • Added value for your platform. Your customers get important information about how their site is performing right in your own dashboard.
  • Flexible UI. You can pull stats from the plugin dashboard and display stats natively in your platform’s UI.
Site Kit’s main dashboard helps you see the most important info about how your site is doing at a glance: how people are finding your site (traffic sources), your most popular pages, and what people search for to find your site. For more, check out the Find your way around Site Kit guide in our docs.

Get started with Site Kit

To get started, install the plugin from the WordPress plugin directory. Here are some recommendations on how you can make the most of Site Kit:
  • Review the main dashboard on a weekly basis and check for any significant changes in how people are finding your site. Are people finding your site from a new place?
  • Keep track of how your recent posts are doing by checking the individual page reports.
  • Compare the top performing pages and how people found them. Is a particular topic or product attracting more visitors from social channels?
  • Set up new Google services to get more interesting insights — for example, if you enable PageSpeed Insights and Analytics, you’ll be able to see whether page load time affects bounce rate.
If you are attending WordCamp US in Saint Louis, stop by to see a demo of Site Kit and talk to the team. We're also happy to answer your questions in the Site Kit support forum.
Posted by Mariya Moeva, Product Manager, Search and Content Ecosystem

Site Kit is now available for all WordPress sites

Today, we're announcing that Site Kit is available for everyone to install from the WordPress plugin directory. Site Kit is Google's official WordPress plugin — it gives you insights on how people find and use your site, how to improve and monetize your content, with data from multiple Google tools. Learn more about Site Kit on the official Site Kit website.

Who is Site Kit for?


Site Kit makes it easy for WordPress site owners to understand how their site is doing and what to do next. As a WordPress site owner, Site Kit offers you:
  • Easy to verify site ownership through Search Console — no need to paste a code snippet on your site to prove you're an owner.
  • Convenient and easy access to relevant stats directly in your WordPress dashboard. We save you time — see the key information right when you sign in.
  • Cross-product insights — Google Search Console, Google Analytics, PageSpeed Insights, AdSense — are combined into a single, intuitive dashboard. We help you make informed decisions, quickly.
  • No source code editing. This is the easiest way to install and manage Google products on your site in just a few clicks.
If you are a developer or an agency working on WordPress sites for clients, Site Kit can make your life easier:
  • You’ll get aggregated insights from Google products, distilled in a dashboard that your clients or other teams can easily access. No need to copy data from multiple products to compile reports for clients.
  • The site performance stats and improvement recommendations come directly from Google — your customers will be getting the latest best practices recommended by Google products.
  • Site Kit provides roles and permissions to help you manage access to the site’s data and make sure only the relevant people can see stats from Google products.
If you work on a plugin or hosting provider, Site Kit provides a scalable, easy way for your users to provision and access key Google tools and metrics.
  • Easy connection to official Google tools. Your customers don’t have to edit the source code to set up Google tools.
  • Added value for your platform. Your customers get important information about how their site is performing right in your own dashboard.
  • Flexible UI. You can pull stats from the plugin dashboard and display stats natively in your platform’s UI.
Site Kit’s main dashboard helps you see the most important info about how your site is doing at a glance: how people are finding your site (traffic sources), your most popular pages, and what people search for to find your site. For more, check out the Find your way around Site Kit guide in our docs.

Get started with Site Kit

To get started, install the plugin from the WordPress plugin directory. Here are some recommendations on how you can make the most of Site Kit:
  • Review the main dashboard on a weekly basis and check for any significant changes in how people are finding your site. Are people finding your site from a new place?
  • Keep track of how your recent posts are doing by checking the individual page reports.
  • Compare the top performing pages and how people found them. Is a particular topic or product attracting more visitors from social channels?
  • Set up new Google services to get more interesting insights — for example, if you enable PageSpeed Insights and Analytics, you’ll be able to see whether page load time affects bounce rate.
If you are attending WordCamp US in Saint Louis, stop by to see a demo of Site Kit and talk to the team. We're also happy to answer your questions in the Site Kit support forum.
Posted by Mariya Moeva, Product Manager, Search and Content Ecosystem

Google Webmaster Conference goes to Tel Aviv

We are happy to let you know that the Google Webmaster Conference is coming to Tel Aviv, Israel this winter!

If you are looking for an opportunity to socialize with the Search engineering team, or to hear from us what we’ve been working on, here is your chance! We’re planning lots of interesting content: John Mueller on Search, Andre Naumann on Trust & Safety, Daniel Waisberg on structured data, and many more speakers from the Search Console team.

The event will take place on December 4th, between 15:00 and 19:00 in the Google Tel Aviv offices. Learn more and apply for a spot at our website.



Get ready, and see you in Tel Aviv! And if you miss this one, don’t worry, we’ll have more events around the world next year. To be the first to learn about new locations, make sure to follow Google Webmasters on Twitter.

Posted by Daniel Waisberg, Search Advocate.

Google Webmaster Conference goes to Tel Aviv

We are happy to let you know that the Google Webmaster Conference is coming to Tel Aviv, Israel this winter!

If you are looking for an opportunity to socialize with the Search engineering team, or to hear from us what we’ve been working on, here is your chance! We’re planning lots of interesting content: John Mueller on Search, Andre Naumann on Trust & Safety, Daniel Waisberg on structured data, and many more speakers from the Search Console team.

The event will take place on December 4th, between 15:00 and 19:00 in the Google Tel Aviv offices. Learn more and apply for a spot at our website.



Get ready, and see you in Tel Aviv! And if you miss this one, don’t worry, we’ll have more events around the world next year. To be the first to learn about new locations, make sure to follow Google Webmasters on Twitter.

Posted by Daniel Waisberg, Search Advocate.

Video Series for New Webmasters: Search for Beginners!

We are excited to introduce our newest video series: “Search For Beginners”! The series was created primarily to help new webmasters. It is also for anyone with an interest in Search or anyone who is still learning about the Web and how to manage their online presence.

We love to see the webmaster community grow! Every day, there are countless new webmasters who are taking the first steps in learning how Search works, and how to make their websites perform well and discoverable on Search. We understand that it sometimes can be challenging or even overwhelming to start with our existing content without some prior knowledge or basic understandings of the Web. We find our basic videos in our YouTube channels to be the ones with the most views. At the same time, advanced webmasters also see the need for content that can be sent to clients or stakeholders to help explain important concepts in managing an online presence.

We want to help all webmasters succeed, regardless of whether you have been managing websites for many years or you’ve just started out yesterday. We want to do more to help the new webmasters and this video series will hopefully help us achieve that.

Introduction to the series:

Episode 1:

The “Search For Beginners” video series covers basic online presence topics ranging from ‘Do you need a website?’, ‘What are the goals for your website?’ to more organic search-related topics such as ‘How does Google Search work?’, ‘How to change description line’, or ‘How to change wrong address information on Google’. Actually, we get asked these questions frequently in forums, social channels and at events around the world! The videos are fully animated. The videos are in English with subtitles available in Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, and English. We are working on more, so please stay tuned!

And if you consider yourself a more experienced user, please feel free to use these videos to support your pitches or explaining things to your clients. If you want to share any ideas or learnings, please leave them in the comment section in each video so that others can benefit from your knowledge and experience.

Follow us on Twitter and subscribe on YouTube for the upcoming videos! We will be adding new videos in this series to this playlist about every two weeks!

Posted by Cherry Prommawin, Search Quality Analyst

Video Series for New Webmasters: Search for Beginners!

We are excited to introduce our newest video series: “Search For Beginners”! The series was created primarily to help new webmasters. It is also for anyone with an interest in Search or anyone who is still learning about the Web and how to manage their online presence.

We love to see the webmaster community grow! Every day, there are countless new webmasters who are taking the first steps in learning how Search works, and how to make their websites perform well and discoverable on Search. We understand that it sometimes can be challenging or even overwhelming to start with our existing content without some prior knowledge or basic understandings of the Web. We find our basic videos in our YouTube channels to be the ones with the most views. At the same time, advanced webmasters also see the need for content that can be sent to clients or stakeholders to help explain important concepts in managing an online presence.

We want to help all webmasters succeed, regardless of whether you have been managing websites for many years or you’ve just started out yesterday. We want to do more to help the new webmasters and this video series will hopefully help us achieve that.

Introduction to the series:

Episode 1:

The “Search For Beginners” video series covers basic online presence topics ranging from ‘Do you need a website?’, ‘What are the goals for your website?’ to more organic search-related topics such as ‘How does Google Search work?’, ‘How to change description line’, or ‘How to change wrong address information on Google’. Actually, we get asked these questions frequently in forums, social channels and at events around the world! The videos are fully animated. The videos are in English with subtitles available in Spanish, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, and English. We are working on more, so please stay tuned!

And if you consider yourself a more experienced user, please feel free to use these videos to support your pitches or explaining things to your clients. If you want to share any ideas or learnings, please leave them in the comment section in each video so that others can benefit from your knowledge and experience.

Follow us on Twitter and subscribe on YouTube for the upcoming videos! We will be adding new videos in this series to this playlist about every two weeks!

Posted by Cherry Prommawin, Search Quality Analyst