This week Google announced preparations for a complete overhaul of its Search Console tool that webmasters from across the internet will probably be interested in. While the company hasn’t released a specific date for when the changes will go into effect, at least two new beta tools will be making their way out to selected users over the coming weeks to make sure everything is working as intended. Those include access to both an Index Coverage report and AMP fixing flow – which Google claims will make fixing website problems, getting and staying indexed in search, and managing web appearance much easier tasks.
Once the overhaul is completed, Google says its free-to-use Search Console will provide “more actionable insights,” better workflow organization, and the “faster feedback loops” between users and Google. To begin with, rather than just telling users there is an issue with their site, identified problems will be grouped together by source so that underlying causes can be fixed. That should make it much easier for webmasters to find and then fix multiple errors associated with a single bit or line of code. The new insights will also show whether an issue is fixed or open, as well as allow for the tracking of progress. The new tools will also help web developers who are working in a larger group of individuals since they allow sharing of problems and relevant data about those problems. Going further still, Google says that it has built a “mechanism” into the new Search Console to help get problems fixed more quickly. The company will no longer need to crawl a site for webmasters to see if the problem has been fixed. Beyond that, the testing improvements will include a search preview and code snippets so that the fixes can be confirmed and previewed before Google crawls the site again.
As to the two beta features, the Index Coverage report provides webmasters with general information about indexed pages. That includes a tally of how many pages have been indexed, possible reasons why some of those could not be indexed, and example pages and tips for how to fix issues. Google says it also includes simplification of sitemap submissions and the ability to filter indexing data by sitemap. Meanwhile, the AMP fixing flow shows the current “AMP issues” affecting a given site. Those are grouped by root-cause. The beta tool with also allow fix verification and for Google to recrawl the site at the click of a button once the issues are fixed. It will also show in-depth information about the problems and which pages are affected, in addition to updating as the pages are validated in real-time.
