Google has changed the name of Google Webmaster Tools to 'Google Search Console' recently.
I believe this change came about because they've moved much of the important search data like rankings from Analytics to Google Webmaster Tools/Search Console. I won't be using the name, Google Webmaster Tools from now on. If I do need to refer to it, I'll refer to it as GWT.
You can now link Google Analytics, Adwords, Adsense, Search Console together for more comprehensive data.
I've noticed recently that you can get to your Adsense publisher data in Analytics. This is kind of convenient since it's not as easy to get to the data I'm interested in in Adsense.
The new Search Console does come with some new features including...
- AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages). This is something new and, in my opinion, not worth the trouble. It requires some re-coding of your HTML. I say it's not worth the trouble because most websites these days are built on a platform or content management system (like Joomla, WordPress). Making them AMP pages would require quite a bit of work... especially if you're like me and create a mobile style sheet for transforming your site into an app-looking-website when viewed on mobile. As long as you keep in mind that some people are using smart phones on not-so-fast connections, you should be fine. Not to mention, the internet speeds in the U.S. are behind many other countries and are only going to get faster. I would hope that by 2018 your phone's network will be as fast if not faster than your home network. Might be a hope that never comes true in a country with companies (ISPs) as greedy as those in the U.S. Hopefully Google Fibre will combat that issue. I'm hoping in the near future that there will be no need to have Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) for mobile devices.
- Mobile Usability. There is now a section in the Search Console to check the mobile usability of your website. Used to have to search for 'google mobile friendly test', find the correct search result, then go to that UI (user interface/dashboard).
- Crawl Errors. This section became a little more comprehensive and useful as you can see exactly what's wrong and submit as 'fixed'.
- Security Issues. This section is awesome, but has room for improvement. It's obvious that Google is recognizing the need for more security on the web. They are very diligent about warning you when your Joomla or WordPress site needs to be updated, which is one of the major reasons for sites getting hacked. There are other ways to get hacked, though, and I hope they will improve on this section by covering all of them. It would definitely make me sleep easier.
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