Google Webmaster Tools offers just that. First of all you can create
your account here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/
Once your account is active you'll need to add your site and verify
it by placing a string on the HTML head section (they will provide
instructions).
The first thing you want to do after verifying your site is
to click on "Site Configuration" and then "Settings". There you'll
be able set your "Preferred Domain". This important to make sure
that Google will index only one version of your site (either the
one with the www. prefix, or the one without it). There is no best
choice here; it is a matter of preference. Just make sure that
the version you'll choose is actually working on your site, and not
redirecting to another version.
At this point Google won't have much data about your site, so you
can leave it there. After a couple of weeks you should login again,
and then explore the other features.
The most important section you should pay attention to is the "Crawl
Errors" one, under the "Diagnostics" link. This basically will tell
you if Google is facing any problems while crawling your site. If it
is, you should try to fix the issue immediately, or your search
rankings could suffer.
Not all errors are equally serious. The "Not Found" ones,
for example, might just be site owners that linked to the wrong URL
inside your site. Similarly, "Restricted by robots.txt" errors can
be caused by disallowing crawling of certain areas on your site
legitimately. Be careful with the "Timed out" and "Unrecheable"
errors, though, because they mean that the Google bot is not
reaching your pages correctly. If you get too many of these errors
your complete site might get de-indexed.
After exploring the "Crawl Errors" section you should take a look
at "Crawl stats" and "HTML suggestions", both under the
"Diagnostics" link.
"Crawl stats" will show you how often the Google bot is visiting
your site. The graph should be stable, if not growing. If you see
a downward trend there is something wrong there. Remember that
the more often the Google bot visits your site the higher your
authority for Google.
The "HTML suggestions" part will report problems with your meta
tags. A very common problem webmasters have is a large number of
duplicate title tags. If you have, take a look at your blog
structure to solve the problem.
That is about it. There are other interesting sections inside
the Google Webmaster Tools
your account here: http://www.google.com/
Once your account is active you'll need to add your site and verify
it by placing a string on the HTML head section (they will provide
instructions).
The first thing you want to do after verifying your site is
to click on "Site Configuration" and then "Settings". There you'll
be able set your "Preferred Domain". This important to make sure
that Google will index only one version of your site (either the
one with the www. prefix, or the one without it). There is no best
choice here; it is a matter of preference. Just make sure that
the version you'll choose is actually working on your site, and not
redirecting to another version.
At this point Google won't have much data about your site, so you
can leave it there. After a couple of weeks you should login again,
and then explore the other features.
The most important section you should pay attention to is the "Crawl
Errors" one, under the "Diagnostics" link. This basically will tell
you if Google is facing any problems while crawling your site. If it
is, you should try to fix the issue immediately, or your search
rankings could suffer.
Not all errors are equally serious. The "Not Found" ones,
for example, might just be site owners that linked to the wrong URL
inside your site. Similarly, "Restricted by robots.txt" errors can
be caused by disallowing crawling of certain areas on your site
legitimately. Be careful with the "Timed out" and "Unrecheable"
errors, though, because they mean that the Google bot is not
reaching your pages correctly. If you get too many of these errors
your complete site might get de-indexed.
After exploring the "Crawl Errors" section you should take a look
at "Crawl stats" and "HTML suggestions", both under the
"Diagnostics" link.
"Crawl stats" will show you how often the Google bot is visiting
your site. The graph should be stable, if not growing. If you see
a downward trend there is something wrong there. Remember that
the more often the Google bot visits your site the higher your
authority for Google.
The "HTML suggestions" part will report problems with your meta
tags. A very common problem webmasters have is a large number of
duplicate title tags. If you have, take a look at your blog
structure to solve the problem.
That is about it. There are other interesting sections inside
the Google Webmaster Tools
