What is Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools)?
Google Search Console, formerly known as Google webmaster tools, is one of the few ways you can see your website through the eyes of Google. When your customers search something, Google will deliver the most accurate and best results. If your website is among the best results, but not appearing in the top page of the search results, Google Search Console can help explain why and guide you to improving your position in the search results.
With Google Search Console connected to your website you can:
- See crawl errors, search analytics, keyword impressions/position/clicks, links to your site, what pages are linked the most, by what websites, and how your data is link by anchor text.
- Alert you to any harmful code that has recently been added to your website and offer a quick resolution to getting a page back up and running.
- Even block bad backlinks from devaluing your website!
- And much more!
Why do we need Google Search Console?
Without it, your website is at risk. If you have any mistakes, unwanted links pointing to it or is hacked you’ll need an easy way to fix it. It’s also free and only takes a few minutes to set up.
An Example of Google Search Console in Action
We received notification, from Google, that a very popular page on a website was found to have malicious code on it. When we opened the webpage, there was a big warning to the visitor to not view the page because of the harmful code and instructed them to leave.
For a website that is not connected to Google Search Console it would have taken days or months to fix and remove the warning. The solution to a website connected to Google Search Console (GSC) was to check the website for the code, remove and notify Google from the GSC dashboard that the page has been updated. Less than 8 hours later, Google notified us that the issue was viewed and resolved and the webpage was back to normal.
Another Example of Google Search Console in Action
A new client was stuck on the 2nd page of Google for a majority of the search keywords they wanted to rank for in their local area. They had a brand new website, build 6 months ago. We connected their website to GSC and waited for the results to come in on reasons for keeping the website back.
GSC indicated, that the backlinks and anchor texts pointing to the website were the issue. We pulled a list of links to disavowed (remove) and submitted the list via GSC. As expected, the ranking improve considerably, within a week.
Don’t Miss Out
Google provides this free tool so why not connect your website to ensure you don’t miss out on the opportunity to drive additional traffic to your website or be alerted to be able to fix any issues that may arise?
Stream’s Kick-Start Step-To set up your Google Search Console account, refer to this guide from Google or speak to a Stream Companies specialist about our SEO services and we’ll set it up for you as a client.
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