Google Webmaster Tools Offers New Features

Those familiar with Google products may already be aware of Google’s Labs.  For those that don’t know, the Labs section of Google is where they test out new features for existing products.  When checking your Gmail or Google Calendar you may have seen a tiny green beaker near the top of the page where you can see what experiments are available for the application you are using.  Often the labs will give a user more functionality or better ways of using an existing product.

To those who use Google’s Webmaster tools to monitor and analyze your website, you can now use two new features in the labs section.  These new features are “Fetch as Googlebot” and “Malware details”.  Below is an example of what it looks like in the dashboard:

Using these new tools can help you to detect more issues with your website.  The Fetch as Googlebot tool will allow you to see your website as Google sees it.  You can look at the code as Google sees it to compare it to how it should be interpreted.  Since it is coming from Google’s servers, it may look different than the source code.  If this is the case, you may have found some issues.  To run the report click “Fetch as Googlebot” and click the “success” link once it appears.

The other feature that Google is now offering is a “Malware details” function.  This new functionality can help you keep a better watch over your site.  If there is no Malware on your site, the tool will say so.  If there is Malware detected, details will be provided.  This will help you to determine if your site has been hacked and where to look to fix it.  For more information on the Malware tool, head over the Google blog for more information.