What is it, how is it used and what is Google Webmaster Tools for?

Google (for some time, ), is a set of tools that Google offers us to control our on-page.

To put it bluntly, it is the essential communication tool with Google in the day to day of every professional who is dedicated to . A sneak peek between the data we send to Google and its status and quality.

It is important to note that the GSC (Google Search Console) data is from the last 90 days in most cases, so if you want to keep a history you can get it out (death!), using the or using tools such as , which allow you to transfer the data to an Excel.

The GSC API allows us, for example, to retrieve the data in tools such as or to better track the data that these tools give us combined with that of Google Search Console, which allows us to compare, for example, the evolution in positioning of a with the clicks recorded in GSC over time.

How to verify Google Webmaster Tools

There are several ways to verify that you are the owner of that domain before Google shows you data about it. It must be said that some of the possibilities offered by Google Webmaster Tools are more complicated than others, so I will stick with the 3 easiest:

You also have plugin that allow connection to most platforms: WordPress or Prestashop. Magento has it integrated from the base through the configuration of its backoffice.

How to use Google Search Console (or WebmasterTools)

Like everything, using it is easy. Knowing what to use it for is the tricky part. Let’s start from the basis that, to make good use of it, you first need to know what you are looking for. I detail below much of the information you can access from the Google Search Console (GSC).

Crossing it with your other data (Google Analytics, sales, …) will depend on how you have configured the collection of said information and/or if you are using tools such as Sistrix, which can give you keyword positioning data combined with the data that it extracts from your , Search Console and what your competition is doing at the level of

I believe that a good grouping criterion for what the formerly-known-as Google Webmaster Tools can give us would be: quality of data on our site (for On-page SEO), tracking and indexing of our site and other tools. At the level of data qualityin Google Webmaster Tools we can access how Google sees:

• Our structured data (markup of schema.org and microformats.org, for example)
• Our meta data: meta title, meta description and non-indexable content
• The mobile usability of our site
• The correct markup in international languages ​​and countries (hreflang tags)
• The density of the most relevant words within our content
• Detected URL parameters: those that follow, for example, a ? (?id=, ?content=…)

At the level of Google Bot crawling and indexing:

• Blocked resources: non-crawlable URLs that Google needs to correctly interpret our page (images, style sheets, javascript files…)
• The number of URLs submitted and indexed
• The number of URLs removed
• The number of URLs blocked by the robots.txt file
• errors in sitemaps
• 40x and 50x errors (pages not found, server down, pages the browser cannot access due to server crash)
• Crawl statistics: pages, kilobytes and daily download time
• The tool to explore the site as if we were Google in desktop version, and Smartphone

In addition, Google Webmaster Tools shows us other aspects such as:

• The security issues of our page: malware, potentially dangerous content…
• manual actions against our site (from Google’s Quality Raters, that is, penalties)
• URL removal
• search datakeyword position, total clicks, impressions and segmentation of said data by keyword, URL, country, device, type of search and date
• Links to our website (backlinks)
• internal links from our page to our page
• dial checker email
• markup wizard structured data for software applications, articles, local businesses, TV episodes, events, movies, products, book reviews, restaurants…

The part that has the most chicha is that of search traffic > search analysis. Here you have a discussion of the subject and where, basically, it is explained how to combat not provided through the search data and URLs provided by Google Webmaster Tools. Digging into that information, we can get an estimate of which keywords and URLs they are giving us more traffic and cross these URLs with the sampling provided by Analytics () to see which “keywords > URLs” are giving us more transactions and income.

OK OK. And all this Google Webmaster Tools… what is it for?

Well, I could wind up writing Don Quixote of Search Console (or La Regent of Google Webmaster Tools) but I prefer to give you a practical case. Let’s say I launch a store with a Smartphone version and I want to know what usability errors Google detects (elements that can influence how I rank for that version). In this case, I will take the example of a client that manufactures custom boxes, just so you can see what the ideal plan that Google Search Console gives us when nothing fails in mobile usability (click to enlarge image):

Excellent. According to Google Webmaster Tools I have no outstanding issues. now i’ll fuck another of the URLs that I have in GSCthis one from an online store whose name I cannot reveal and that, in this case, no mobile version developed, if not purely for desktop (although it also works for tablet, on mobile it looks terrible). Here we go (click to enlarge the image):

Phew. Lots of errors pop up. This is where we can use another of the tools that Google Webmaster Tools gives us, search analysis. What is my average position for the main keywords in Mobile vs Desktop? I go to devices > compare devices (click to enlarge the image)

And I compare devices. Let’s see how the ranking is in the average of the keywords that Google Webmaster Tools captures

I choose two of the main queries that bring me the most traffic and I mark “position” since I am interested in knowing in what position I have these keywords on desktop and mobile.

Not bad. It could be worse, but we are talking about one of them being 7.5 positions apart. Same URL, very different ranking on various devices. Wrong! It is clear that this website needs a responsive version to rank better (I no longer say for users).

conclusion

This tool is a good point to look at if you want to prepare a web page and see how it ranks. Some details such as search engine keywords, device adaptability or internal links. Due to its status as a free tool, Google Webmaster Tools It is interesting for individuals and SMEs. Perhaps the main problem is in the ability to adapt to SEO for neophytes, but this is not a defect of the application.

In any case, its use is highly recommended to contrast the positioning of the web in the Google search engine. We recommend the use if you are getting into the development of web pages and want to be successful audience.

Stay informed of the most relevant news on our news channel