Let’s face it, we cannot be successful on the web without acknowledging the power of google and the importance of having a high search ranking on the world’s top search engine. However, to be successful, we need to know what google is looking for, what the crawlers/bots want to find, and also how to make it easy for them to find our content. To do this, let’s become the eyes of the google-bot (The google web client used to index and search the web for new content) and to do this, google has an excellent tool called the ‘Fetch as Googlebot tool’. This tool can be found within google’s webmaster tools.
To gain access to this and many other features you must first sign-in to Google Webmaster Tools at – www.google.com/webmasters You will be able to create a profile for your website if you don’t have one yet. It is quite simple and all you need to do is read and follow instructions.
Once you have created your website profile, simply click on the ‘Labs’ tab to the left, as shown below and click Fetch as Googlebot.
There are also other diagnostic tools that will let you know if the googlebot experiences errors when trying to crawl your site and other useful statistics.
Note: The googlebot cannot interpret Flash content, so if you are an avid designer who wants to use lots of fancy flash to enhance your website, bear in mind that the googlebot does not see this content thus will not index it. Ensure that content placed in flash has supplementary text in other areas of the site.
The main goal in paying attention to these tools and statistics is to ensure that your site is search engine friendly and does not contain errors that will affect your website’s visibility online. By following google’s tips and tweaking your web pages according to google standards, you can rest assured that your site will be search and crawler friendly for the thousands of other search engines out there. So go ahead and take advantage of the many free tools on the net, just ensure that they are from a reliable source.
You can find other useful tools here: www.seobook.com
If you have found other useful tools out there on the web, that would complement the google webmaster tools, share with us by leaving a comment with links.
