New Google Search Console Now Out of Beta: What You Need to Know
Google is having quite a year this 2018, releasing numerous algorithm updates, new features in some of their tools, along with big rebrands of some of their services. One of the services that have received the latest set of updates is Google Search Console. Perhaps one of the most important Google SEO tools around, the new updates aim to optimize performance and provide a new set of features.
Initially at the beta stage, the new Google Search Console is now available in full. With SEO being an ever-changing landscape, as evident during this year, these updates come at a very good time. Here are some of the newest features that you should know, and also show them how they work.
URL Inspection
One of the new features is the URL Inspection tool, which allows you to inspect individual web pages within a website. To start using the Inspection Tool, enter the URL of the webpage within the website.
Search Console will only take a few moments to analyze the web page and quickly provides you with the information you need. The results page shows quickly shows you whether the URL is on the Google Index, along with information about coverage and mobile usage.
If the URL that you sent is not indexed by Google, you can test the URL if it can be indexed by Google. This can be done in just a few minutes, and you’ll be notified as soon as possible.
On the Coverage section of the page, you’ll be able to view information from three categories, Discovery, Crawl, and Indexing. Discovery allows you to see the sitemap and referring page. Crawl shows the last time the web page was crawled by Google, if crawling is allowed, and if the page fetch process was successful. The last section is Indexing, which shows if indexing is allowed, along with User-selected URL, and Google-selected canonical information.
The next section is mobile usability, which indicates whether or not your web page is mobile friendly or not. This is important for mobile SEO, as mobile-compatible websites are a must as more people view websites through their devices.
The best part of this URL Inspection tool is that you can track the URL live. This allows you to track real-time information on the changes within the web page. Overall, the URL inspection tool is a simple and handy feature that helps you look for web pages that need to be indexed by Google.
Manual Actions Report
The second new feature is the Manual Actions Report, which allows you to view various issues found on your web page. This can be viewed instantly on your Overview page as part of the report summary. If issues are found, you can request a review from Google once it has been optimized.
This feature comes in handy, as we would be able to find important issues in the quickest time. This allows us to find issues much quicker compared to using website audit tools. Having this kind of feature ensures that our websites perform at their best, and resolving any issue can be done more efficiently.
What’s next
With this update, Google Search Console will be aiming to completely integrate to the newer version after a significant amount of time. This means that more updates would be bound to happen in the next few months. With the rest of Google’s tools experiencing big updates, it is only normal to expect that the Search Console will receive more optimization.
Key takeaway
Google Search Console is one of the most effective free SEO tools available, and seeing it receive a new set of updates makes it an even better tool. Google has been very busy over this past year, and with these types of updates arriving for their other services, expect more quality that allows you to perform SEO tasks with more efficiency.
If you have questions and inquiries about Google Search Console and SEO in general, leave a comment below and let’s talk.
