We’re finally nearing the end of our series about Google’s Webmaster Tools. We’ve covered almost every aspect of the service, everything from diagnostics to statistics, links to sitemaps. All that’s left to examine are a few handy functions buried within the Tools Section. We’ll discuss a few of theses items today, and the rest in a post later this week. Let’s get going.
Analyze Robots.txt
I mentioned the robots.txt file before, but only in passing. Today, I’ll provide a more complete explanation.
The robots.txt file is a text file that tells the Google robot, when it crawls your web site and adds pages to the Google index, which files and directories are open and available and which aren’t. And it’s not just for the Google robot; all search engine crawlers should read and follow its directives.
While robot.txt files can certainly be complicated, their basic format is very simple. Here’s an example of an exceedingly simple robot.txt file:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /family/
Suppose you have a directory on your web site that contains some pages for and about your family that you don’t want others to find via a random Google search. Well, the above robots.txt file would tell all robots to stay out of that family directory.
The Analyze Robots.txt function you test your robots.txt file, so you can be sure it’s telling Google exactly what you want it to. Simply put a URL in the box at the bottom of the page, then click the button. Note: You need to input in the complete URL if you want to check a blocked page.
Set Geographic Target
Did you know that you can actually target your site geographically, and that if you do, Google will provide the code necessary to connect your business to Google Maps? If you have bricks and mortar locations, this is a can’t miss opportunity. I know I often use Google Maps to find businesses both in my everyday life and when traveling.
The geographic target you choose doesn’t have to be all that specific. For instance, I set my sights on the entire United States.
Enable Enhanced Image Search
This is how you enable enhanced image searching. When you activate the function, you’re in effect giving Google permission to label your photos using the Google Image Labeler or some similar technology. This makes your images easy to find via Google’s image search utility.
If you want to provide easy access to your images and don’t mind others using them for their own projects, then go ahead and sign up. I, however, think most people won’t want their images included in the Google’s search database, and I’ll tell you more about why in a later post.
That’s all for now, but check back later this week. We’ll be talking site verification, crawl rates, preferred domains and urls.
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