A piece of SEO news webmasters and SEOs have been waiting on regards the facelift that was given to Google webmaster tools which is supposed to be more comprehensive and user friendly. The dashboard has a whole new look and it does appear to be a bit easier to navigate, but not all users are enamored with the cosmetic changes. Some even say Google spent too much effort on changing the look rather than the functionality. What everyone seems to like is the ability to switch between the comfortable and compact look.
Sorting is much better as you can now sort based on alphabetical order as well as site health. It seems small, but what a difference it makes if you have a couple dozen sites to deal with. What we were disappointed by is that for the many small changes that were made, traffic didn’t really change as much as was hoped for. We were looking for more comprehensive analytics than were delivered which was disappointing to not see. The optimization center is slightly better, but not enough to go agog over.
Overall, SEOs have given the new look a thumbs up. Webmaster tools are a bit easier to use and they did deliver on improving a few functionality issues that were previously habitually glitchy. The overall look is nice, but most feel that traffic analytics and optimization were more important areas to focus on than the cosmetics. If nothing else, it is a step in the right direction.
Tags: Google, seo news, Webmaster tools
