Seo - Advanced Site Audit using Google Webmaster Tools

SEO - ADVANCED SITE

Table of Content

1. Google Webmaster Tools

2. Duplicates and Thin/Poor pages

3. Crawl Errors

4. HTML Improvement

5. Site Speed/Site Performance

6. Monitor Search Queries

7. Link Profiles Analysis

What is Google Webmaster Tools?

Google Webmaster Tools:

A set of tools and resources

Monitors and analyze

GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS

What is Sitemap (XML)?Sitemap (XML) is a list of pages on your Website.  It is easiest way to give Google, and other search engines, information about your site and may speed up Google’s crawlers finding you.  

What is Robots.txt?

The robots.txt is a text file webmasters create to instruct robots (typically search engine robots) on how to crawl & index pages on their website.

BASIC FEATURES FOR AUDIT

Identifying Duplicates and Thin/Poor pages

Checking for Crawl Errors

Improving Your HTML

Checking Site Performance

Monitoring Search Queries

Analyzing Link Profiles

DUPLICATES AND THIN/POOR PAGES

DUPLICATES AND THIN/POOR PAGES

Comparing the number of pages from the sitemap vs. the number of pages already indexed by Google.

On Webmaster Tools, go to “Optimization”, then to “Sitemap”:

Rough estimation of how many pages from the site have been already indexed by Google.

For Index Status - Go to “Health”, and then to “Index Status”:

DUPLICATES AND THIN/POOR PAGES..

FINDING DUPLICATE CONTENT WITHIN THE SITE

HTML Improvements

Issues that are causing duplication within your site.

Identify pages (URL parameters, session IDs and/or

pagination problems).

FINDING DUPLICATE CONTENT WITHIN THE SITE

Site’s Crawl Error Data

Check for URLs

Particularly the extended URL strings being crawled

by Google.

CRAWL ERRORS Crawl Errors are issued encountered while crawling your site

Crawl Error Types-

Soft 404 Errors HTTP Errors Not Found Errors Sitemap Errors

MANAGING ERRORS: TIPS

Mark as Fixe

d

•This feature will take the error out of your list unless it isn’t resolved and will return again.

COMMON FIXES TO FIX CRAWL ERRORS ON A SITE

Reviving the page on a new or old URL (if the non-existent page is important), then 301 redirect the old URL to the new one.

301 redirecting the page to another relevant page/category (if the page is linked from external websites)

Removing internal links pointing to the 404 page (if page is not that important)

Fixing the page (if issue was caused by server-end or coding errors).

HTML IMPROVEMENTS - WEBMASTER TOOLS

The HTML Improvements page shows you potential issues Google found when crawling and indexing your site.

HTML Improvements is another feature of WMT which can be found under the “Optimization” tab.

HTML IMPROVEMENTS - WEBMASTER TOOLS

FEATURES OF HTML IN WEBMASTER TOOLS

Duplicate meta descriptions

Long meta descriptions

Short meta descriptions Missing title tags

Duplicate title tags

Long title tags Short title tags

Non-informative title tags

Non-indexable content

The list for each potential page-level issue can guide you on what changes/improvements to implement for the pages that search crawlers might have found to be causing indexation problems for your site.

SITE SPEED/SITE PERFORMANCE

To view Site speed Just go to “Labs”, and then choose “Site Performance”.

Gaining insights

Will provide performance overview.

Tools - Google’s Page Speed or Pingdom 

SITE SPEED/SITE PERFORMANCE

MONITOR SEARCH

QUERIES

Search queries :

Query

Impressions

Clicks

MONITOR SEARCH

QUERIES

LINK PROFILES

ANALYSIS Traffic > Links to your site

Full list of domains “who linked the

most” to your site.

Sample Website Audit Report

Questions

LIST OF REFERENCES