Tag Archives: search console

Enhancing property sets to cover more reports in Search Console

Since initially announcing property sets earlier this year, one of the most popular requests has been to expand this functionality to more sections of Search Console. Thanks to your feedback, we're now expanding property sets to more features!

Property sets help to show how your business is seen by Google across separate websites or apps. For example, if you have multiple international or brand-specific websites, and perhaps even an Android app, it can be useful to see changes of the whole set over time: are things headed in the expected direction? are there any outliers that you'd want to drill down into? Similarly, you could monitor your site's hreflang setup across different versions of the same website during a planned transition, such as when you move from HTTP to HTTPS, or change domains.

With Search Console's property sets, you can now just add any verified properties to a set, let the data collect, and then check out features like the mobile usability report, review your AMP implementation, double-check rich cards, or hreflang / internationalization markup, and more.


We hope these changes make it easier to understand your properties in Search Console. Should you have any questions - or if you just want to help others, feel free to drop by our Webmaster Help Forums.


Posted by John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google Switzerland

Saying goodbye to Content Keywords

In the early days - back when Search Console was still called Webmaster Tools - the content keywords feature was the only way to see what Googlebot found when it crawled a website. It was useful to see that Google was able to crawl your pages at all, or if your site was hacked.

In the meantime, you can easily check any page on your website and see how Googlebot fetches it immediately, Search Analytics shows you which keywords we've shown your site in search for, and Google informs you of many kinds of hacks automatically. Additionally, users were often confused about the keywords listed in content keywords. And so, the time has come to retire the Content Keywords feature in Search Console.

The words on your pages, the keywords if you will, are still important for Google's (and your users') understanding of your pages. While our systems have gotten better, they can't read your mind: be clear about what your site is about, and what you'd like to be found for. Tell visitors what makes your site, your products and services, special!

What was your most surprising, or favorite, keyword shown? Let us know in the comments!

Posted by John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google Switzerland

Using AMP? Try our new webpage tester

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) is a great way to make content on your website accessible in an extremely fast way. To help ensure that your AMP implementation is working as expected , Search Console now has an enhanced AMP testing tool.

This testing tool is mobile-friendly and uses Google's live web-search infrastructure to analyze the AMP page with the real Googlebot. The tool tests the validity of the AMP markup as well as any structured data on the page. If issues are found, click on them to see details, and to have the line in the source-code highlighted. For valid AMP pages, we may also provide a link to a live preview of how this page may appear in Google's search results.

With the share button on the bottom right, you can now share a snapshot of the results that you're currently seeing with others. This makes it easier to discuss issues with your team, whether they're regular occurrences or one-time quirks that you need to iron out. Just click the share button and pass on the URL for this test snapshot. This share feature is now also available in the mobile-friendly testing tool.

We hope this tool makes it easier to create great AMP’d content while finding and resolving issues that may appear on your AMP pages. For any questions, feel free to drop by our webmaster's help forum.



Posted by Ofir Roval & Yaniv Loewenstein, Search Console team

How can Google Search Console help you AMPlify your site?

If you have recently implemented Accelerated Mobile Pages on your site, it’s a great time to check which of your AMP pages Google has found and indexed by using Search Console.

Search Console is a free service that helps you monitor and maintain your site's presence in Google Search, including any Accelerated Mobile Pages. You don't have to sign up for Search Console for your AMP pages to be included in Google Search results, but doing so can help you understand which of your AMP pages are eligible to show in search results.

To get started with Search Console, create a free account or sign in here and validate the ownership of your sites.

Once you have your site set up on Search Console, open the Accelerated Mobile Pages report under Search Appearance > Accelerated Mobile Pages to see which AMP pages Google has found and indexed on your site, as shown here:

The report lists AMP-related issues for AMP pages that are not indexed, so that you can identify and address them.

Search Console also lets you monitor the performance of your AMP pages on Google Search in the Search Analytics report. This report tells you which queries show your AMP pages in Search results, lets you compare how their metrics stack against your other results and see how the visibility of your AMP pages has changed over time.

To view your AMP page metrics, such as clicks or impressions, select Search Appearance > Filter search appearance > AMP.

(Note: if you’ve only just created your Search Console account or set up your AMP pages and they have not been detected yet, remember that Google crawls pages only periodically. You can wait for the scheduled regular recrawl, or you can request a recrawl.)

Have you been using Search Console to monitor your AMP pages? Give us feedback in the comments below or on our Google Webmasters Google+ page. Or as usual, if you have any questions or need help, feel free to post in our Webmasters Help Forum.

Posted by Tom Taylor, AMP Community Manager

A reminder about widget links

Google has long taken a strong stance against links that manipulate a site’s PageRank. Today we would like to reiterate our policy on the creation of keyword-rich, hidden or low-quality links embedded in widgets that are distributed across various sites.

Widgets can help website owners enrich the experience of their site and engage users. However, some widgets add links to a site that a webmaster did not editorially place and contain anchor text that the webmaster does not control. Because these links are not naturally placed, they're considered a violation of Google Webmaster Guidelines.

Below you can find the examples of widgets which contain links that violate Google Webmaster Guidelines:



Google's webspam team may take manual actions on unnatural links. When a manual action is taken, Google will notify the site owners through Search Console. If you receive such a warning for unnatural links to your site and you use links in widgets to promote your site, we recommend resolving these issues and requesting reconsideration.

You can resolve issues with unnatural links by making sure they don't pass PageRank. To do this, add a rel="nofollow" attribute on the widget links or remove the links entirely. After fixing or removing widget links and any other unnatural links to your site, let Google know about your change by submitting a reconsideration request in Search Console. Once the request has been reviewed, you'll get a notification about whether the reconsideration request was successful or not.

Also, we would like to remind webmasters who use widgets on their sites to check those widgets for any unnatural links. Add a rel="nofollow" attribute on those unnatural links or remove the links entirely from the widget.

For more information, please watch our video about widget links and refer to our Webmaster Guidelines on Link Schemes. Additionally, feel free to ask questions in our Webmaster Help Forums, where a community of webmasters can help with their experience.


Posted by Agnieszka Łata, Trust & Safety Search Team and Eric Kuan, Webmaster Relations Specialist

More Safe Browsing Help for Webmasters

(Crossposted from the Google Security Blog.)
For more than nine years, Safe Browsing has helped webmasters via Search Console with information about how to fix security issues with their sites. This includes relevant Help Center articles, example URLs to assist in diagnosing the presence of harmful content, and a process for webmasters to request reviews of their site after security issues are addressed. Over time, Safe Browsing has expanded its protection to cover additional threats to user safety such as Deceptive Sites and Unwanted Software.

To help webmasters be even more successful in resolving issues, we’re happy to announce that we’ve updated the information available in Search Console in the Security Issues report.


The updated information provides more specific explanations of six different security issues detected by Safe Browsing, including malware, deceptive pages, harmful downloads, and uncommon downloads. These explanations give webmasters more context and detail about what Safe Browsing found. We also offer tailored recommendations for each type of issue, including sample URLs that webmasters can check to identify the source of the issue, as well as specific remediation actions webmasters can take to resolve the issue.

We on the Safe Browsing team definitely recommend registering your site in Search Console even if it is not currently experiencing a security issue. We send notifications through Search Console so webmasters can address any issues that appear as quickly as possible.

Our goal is to help webmasters provide a safe and secure browsing experience for their users. We welcome any questions or feedback about the new features on the Google Webmaster Help Forum, where Top Contributors and Google employees are available to help.

For more information about Safe Browsing’s ongoing work to shine light on the state of web security and encourage safer web security practices, check out our summary of trends and findings on the Safe Browsing Transparency Report. If you’re interested in the tools Google provides for webmasters and developers dealing with hacked sites, this video provides a great overview.
Posted by Kelly Hope Harrington, Safe Browsing Team

Search at I/O 16 Recap: Eight things you don’t want to miss

Cross-posted from the Google Developers Blog

Two weeks ago, over 7,000 developers descended upon Mountain View for this year’s Google I/O, with a takeaway that it’s truly an exciting time for Search. People come to Google billions of times per day to fulfill their daily information needs. We’re focused on creating features and tools that we believe will help users and publishers make the most of Search in today’s world. As Google continues to evolve and expand to new interfaces, such as the Google assistant and Google Home, we want to make it easy for publishers to integrate and grow with Google.

In case you didn’t have a chance to attend all our sessions, we put together a recap of all the Search happenings at I/O.

1: Introducing rich cards

We announced rich cards, a new Search result format building on rich snippets, that uses schema.org markup to display content in an even more engaging and visual format. Rich cards are available in English for recipes and movies and we’re excited to roll out for more content categories soon. To learn more, browse the new gallery with screenshots and code samples of each markup type or watch our rich cards devByte.

2: New Search Console reports

We want to make it easy for webmasters and developers to track and measure their performance in search results. We launched a new report in Search Console to help developers confirm that their rich card markup is valid. In the report we highlight “enhanceable cards,” which are cards that can benefit from marking up more fields. The new Search Appearance filter also makes it easy for webmasters to filter their traffic by AMP and rich cards.

3: Real-time indexing

Users are searching for more than recipes and movies: they’re often coming to Search to find fresh information about what’s happening right now. This insight kickstarted our efforts to use real-time indexing to connect users searching for real-time events with fresh content. Instead of waiting for content to be crawled and indexed, publishers will be able to use the Google Indexing API to trigger the indexing of their content in real time. It’s still in its early days, but we’re excited to launch a pilot later this summer.

3: Getting up to speed with Accelerated Mobile Pages

We provided an update on our use of AMP, an open source effort to speed up the mobile web. Google Search uses AMP to enable instant-loading content. Speed is important---over 40% of users abandon a page that takes more than three seconds to load. We announced that we’re bringing AMPed news carousels to the iOS and Android Google apps, as well as experimenting with combining AMP and rich cards. Stay tuned for more via our blog and github page.

In addition to the sessions, attendees could talk directly with Googlers at the Search & AMP sandbox.

5: A new and improved Structured Data Testing Tool

We updated the popular Structured Data Testing tool. The tool is now tightly integrated with the DevSite Search Gallery and the new Search Preview service, which lets you preview how your rich cards will look on the search results page.

6: App Indexing got a new home (and new features)

We announced App Indexing’s migration to Firebase, Google’s unified developer platform. Watch the session to learn how to grow your app with Firebase App Indexing.

7: App streaming

App streaming is a new way for Android users to try out games without having to download and install the app -- and it’s already available in Google Search. Check out the session to learn more.

8. Revamped documentation

We also revamped our developer documentation, organizing our docs around topical guides to make it easier to follow.

Thanks to all who came to I/O -- it’s always great to talk directly with developers and hear about experiences first-hand. And whether you came in person or tuned in from afar, let’s continue the conversation on the webmaster forum or during our office hours, hosted weekly via hangouts-on-air.

Posted by Posted by Fabian Schlup, Software Engineer

Tie your sites together with property sets in Search Console

Mobile app, mobile website, desktop website -- how do you track their combined visibility in search? Until now, you've had to track all of these statistics separately. Search Console is introducing the concept of "property sets," which let you combine multiple properties (both apps and sites) into a single group to monitor the overall clicks and impressions in search within a single report.

It's easy 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!

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.

Don't just listen to us, here's what we heard from one of the beta-testers:

It was one of my most important demands since the beginning of Webmaster Tools / Search Console. And I love the way it is given to us. I see that the remarks of beta-testers have also been understood by Google engineers. So thank you so much! -- Olivier Andrieu (Abondance)

We'll be rolling this out over the next couple of days. If you have multiple properties verified in Search Console, we hope this feature makes it easier for you to keep track. If you have any questions, feedback, or ideas, please come and visit us in the webmaster help forum, or read the help documentation for this new feature!

Posted by Ofir Roval, Search Console Team

P.S. Want to become a beta-tester for future features? Just sign up to become a beta-tester and we'll get in touch.

A new mobile friendly testing tool

Mobile is close to our heart - we love seeing more and more sites make their content available in useful & accessible ways for mobile users. To help keep the ball rolling, we've now launched a new Mobile Friendly Test.

The new tool is linked from Search Console's mobile usability report or available directly at https://search.google.com/search-console/mobile-friendly

The updated tool provides us with room to continue to improve on its functionality, and over time, we expect it to replace the previous Mobile Friendly Test. Additionally, of course this tool also works well on your smartphone, if you need to double-check something there!

We'd like to invite you to take it for a spin, try your website and other sites that you're curious about! Let us know how you like it - either here in the comments or in our webmaster help forums.

Posted by Yaniv Loewenstein, Search Console Team

Deeper Integration of Search Console in Google Analytics

(Cross-posted from the Google Analytics Blog.)
Google Analytics helps brands optimize their websites and marketing efforts for all sources of traffic, and Search Console is where website owners manage how they appear in Google organic search results. Today, we are introducing the ability to display Search Console metrics alongside Google Analytics metrics, in the same reports, side by side - giving you a full view of how your site shows up and performs in organic search results.

For years, users of both Search Console and Google Analytics have been able to link the two properties (instructions) and see Search Console statistics in Google Analytics, in isolation. But to gain a fuller picture of your website’s performance in organic search, it’s beneficial to see how visitors reached your site and what they did once they got there.

With this update, you’ll be able to see your Search Console metrics and your Google Analytics metrics in the same reports, in parallel. By combining data from both sources at the landing page level, we’re able to show you a full range of Acquisition, Behavior and Conversion metrics for your organic search traffic. This feature out is rolling out over the coming few weeks, so not everyone will see it immediately.


New Search Console reports combine Search Console and Google Analytics metrics

New Insights

The new reports allow you to examine your organic search data end-to-end and discover unique and actionable insights. Your Acquisition metrics from Search Console, such as impressions and average position, are now available in relation to your Behavior and Conversion metrics from Google Analytics, like bounce rate and pages per session.

Below are some new capabilities resulting from this improved integration:
 • Find landing pages that are attracting many users through Google organic search (e.g., high impressions and high click through rate) but where users are not engaging with the website. In this case, you should consider improving your landing pages.

 • Find landing pages that have high site engagement but are not successfully attracting users from Google organic search  (e.g., have low click through rate). In this case, you might benefit from improving titles and descriptions shown in search.

 • Learn which queries are ranking well for each organic landing page.

 • Segment organic performance by device category (desktop, tablet, mobile) in the new Devices report.
 

New Landing Page report showing Search Console and Google Analytics metrics

 

Additional Information 

Each of these new reports will display how your organic search traffic performs. As data is joined at the landing page level, Landing Pages, Countries and Devices will show both Search Console and Google Analytics data, while the Queries report will only show Search Console data for individual queries. The same search queries will display in Google Analytics as you see in Search Console today.

As mentioned in our Search Console Help Center, some data may not be displayed, to protect user privacy. For example, Search Console may not track some infrequent queries, and will not display those that include personal or sensitive information.

Also, while the data is displayed in parallel, not all Google Analytics features are available for Search Console data - including segmentation. Any segment that is applied to the new combined reports will only apply to Google Analytics data. You may also see that clicks from Search Console may differ from total sessions in Google Analytics.

 To experience the new combined reports from Search Console and Google Analytics, make sure your properties are linked, and then navigate to the new section “Search Console”, which should appear under “Acquisition” in the left-hand navigation in Google Analytics.

Posted by Joan Arensman, Product Manager, and Daniel Waisberg, Analytics Advocate