Indexed URL issues in Google Webmaster Tools

Google reports they are aware of issues with the indexed URL count in Google Webmaster Tools.

Hear it straight from Google:

Known issue: Sitemaps indexed URL count showing zero indexed URLs

The indexed URL counts for Sitemaps that you have submitted in Webmaster Tools may be showing zero (0) indexed URLs for some sites. We are aware of this issue and are looking into it; you do not need to take any action. This will have no effect on your site’s performance in search results.

Source:

Google Removes PageRank From Webmaster Tools

“We’ve been telling people for a long time that they shouldn’t focus on PageRank so much; many site owners seem to think it’s the most important metric for them to track, which is simply not true,” says Google Webmaster Trends Analyst Susan Moskwa.  “We removed it because we felt it was silly to tell people not to think about it, but then to show them the data, implying that they should look at it.”

So why are they keeping on the Toolbar?

The theory over at SearchEngineRoundTable is that it has to do with branding and it may never come off the Google Toolbar.  (http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/020960.html)

Some feel PageRank is still useful as a way to get a clue of what Google is thinking about your site and others feel it is completely useless.  I’ve used it as a clue over the years, but never rely on it for any sort of substantial or meaningful information.  When I try to explain this to people, I get the feeling that sometimes they aren’t buying it, so I’m pleased about this move.

For newbies, it can be confusing having data in Webmaster Tools that really isn’t important – they think if it’s there, it’s important.  Cleaning up Webmaster Tools when features are no longer important is a good idea.

Google Launches New Features For WebMaster Tools

There are new Labs features for Google Webmaster Tools – you should check them out.

The features are “malware details” and “fetch as googlebot”

In order to help webmasters eliminate malware, Google is now sharing snippets of code from pages it considers malware.

“To help protect users against malware threats, Google has built automated scanners that detect malware on websites we’ve indexed,” says Google’s Lucas Ballard (of the Anti-malware, Anti-malvertising, and Webmaster Tools teams). “Pages that are identified as dangerous by these scanners are accompanied by warnings in Google search results, and browsers such as Google Chrome, Firefox, and Safari also use our data to show similar warnings to people attempting to visit suspicious sites.”

“While it is important to protect users, we also know that most of these sites are not intentionally distributing malware. We understand the frustration of webmasters whose sites have been compromised without their knowledge and who discover that their site has been flagged,” Ballard says.

The Fetch as Googlebot feature lets users see if some of their pages have been hacked and help them understand why they aren’t ranking for certain keywords.

“Our keywords and HTML suggestions features help you understand the content we’re extracting from your site, and any issues we may be running into at crawl and indexing time.,” says Webmaster Tools Product Manager Sagar Kamdar. “However, we realized it was important to provide the ability for users to submit pages on their site and get real-time feedback on what Googlebot sees.”