Google Webmaster Tools Adds Structured Data Dashboard & CNAME Verification

Google added two features to Google Webmaster Tools this week; a structured data dashboard and CNAME record verification.

Structured Data Dashboard

Structured data is a big part of Google’s search results and discovery process and to make it easier for webmasters to understand what structured data Google has indexed from your web site, Google introduced a new section under the “Optimization” section of Google Webmaster Tools named “Structured Data.”

Structured data will show you all the rich snippets markup and other structured data markups Google discovered for your site. Google breaks down the dashboard reporting by three levels including site level, itemtype level and page level.

• On the site level Google aggregates data by root item type and vocabulary schema. Root item type means an item that is not an attribute of another on the same page.
• On the itemtype level Google provides per-page details for each item type. Google will also provide specialized preview columns to show more item markup.
• On the page level Google shows all attributes of every item type on the given page. Google also shows a link to the Rich Snippet testing tool for that specific page.

Here is a picture of the site level report:

CNAME Record Verification

Google has also added yet another way to verify your domain names with Google Webmaster Tools. The new way is to simply add a CNAME record to your DNS. Google said they added this method for those who “are not able to create DNS TXT records for their domains.” For step by step instructions on this, see Google’s blog.

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