Google webmaster tools - what are the must-dos?

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Help! I just registered on google webmaster tools and got my site verified. What are the basic things that I have to do to help SEO? I heard about 301 redirects, to let google know all different versions of your site, like with and without www, and with and without /. How do I do that?

Anything else I need to do to make my site more google-friendly?

(Yes, I'm an absolutely newbie please be gentle )
#search engine optimization #google #mustdos #tools #webmaster #webmaster tools
  • Let it ride for awhile and eventually Google will tell you (via webmaster tools) if you have any problems.
    You can set Google to always use www for your site or the other way around.
    This can also be set in a file called .htaccess (best bet).
    Not really necessary as long as you maintain the same URL format when generating backlinks to your site. (www.mysite.com instead of mysite.com)

    .htaccess method (put the below in your .htacess or create the file in your root directory if it doesn't exist. Change YOURDOMAIN to your actual domain. Your hosting provider may not allow this but most do)

    RewriteEngine On
    RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} !^www\.YOURDOMAIN\.com$ [NC]
    RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.YOURDOMAIN.com/$1 [R=301,L]
  • You should also submit an XML sitemap of your website. You can get one at xml-sitemaps.com (or just google "XML sitemaps"). Then upload to your service (via FTP) and submit it using Webmasters.
    • [1] reply
    • One of the first things I do for a new client with an existing site is find the links which point to pages that no longer exist, just go to diagnostics / crawl errors then within web, click not found, then 301 any old pages to their existing pages, I've given sites a good quick boost by doing that before. That's my favourite webmaster tools use.
      • [1] reply
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    Google webmaster tools - what are the must-dos?

    Help! I just registered on google webmaster tools and got my site verified. What are the basic things that I have to do to help SEO? I heard about 301 redirects, to let google know all different versions of your site, like with and without www, and with and without /. How do I do that? Anything else I need to do to make my site more google-friendly?