Google has quietly added a feature to Google Webmaster Tools that allows you to test your sitemap files prior to submitting them to Google. Google's Pierre Far confirmed that this is indeed a brand new feature built to help webmasters debug their sitemap files prior to submitting them. One of the most common complaints about Google Sitemap files is that Webmaster would create them but not be able to know right away if they were valid. Now, Webmasters can create the sitemaps and test them in Google Webmaster Tools prior to submitting them to Google. To test the sitemap files, simply log [...]

Related Topics: Google: Webmaster Central | SEO: Submitting & Sitemaps

Google has added a new report to the Google Webmaster Tools Labs section. The new report is named "Video Sitemaps" and it should include errors specific to Video Sitemaps files. Google's Matt Cutts has said at SMX Advanced not once and but twice that video sitemaps is one, of many, areas Google's search quality team will focus more on over the course of the year. So seeing a new report in labs for video sitemaps is not too surprising. What does surprise me is that the report doesn't seem to currently add any new information that the Sitemaps section under "Site configuration" in Web [...]

Related Topics: Google: SEO | Google: Webmaster Central | Google: YouTube & Video | SEO: Submitting & Sitemaps

Since Google launched XML Sitemaps back in 2005, they've added specialized formats to enable site  owners to submit content other than web pages. Until now, site owners have had to create separate Sitemaps for each content type: Mobile News Video Geo Images Code Search That's now changed. You can now create a single XML Sitemap that contains any combination of these content types. The Google Webmaster Central blog post doesn't mention News Sitemaps, so presumably news content can't be mixed with the other types. Great news for site owners? Possibly. It may be easier to cre [...]

Related Topics: Google: Webmaster Central | SEO: Submitting & Sitemaps | Top News

It’s no secret that newspapers have been struggling with the disruptive innovations introduced by Google, and this has resulted in some level of resistance and a circling-of-the-wagons mentality by the industry. But, what if they were to go in the opposite direction, with full engagement? Search engine optimization could really help newspapers, and here’s one tactic for how to do it.

Related Topics: Local Search | SEO: Redirects & Moving Sites | SEO: Submitting & Sitemaps

Many site owners have wanted the recently introduced canonical tag to work across domains. Now their wishes will come true. Google announced cross-domain support will come by the end of the year. The news came out during the Duplicate Content: The Search Engines Edition session at SMX East conference today. Google made the announcement in response to site owners again voicing that they wanted such a solution. The existing canonical tag is only supported by Google, at the moment. Yahoo and Bing both said they're studying support but think its likely they'll add support by the end of the y [...]

Related Topics: Google: SEO | SEO: Domain Names & URLs | SEO: Submitting & Sitemaps | Top News