- Google Sitemaps Beta
September 2005 - Verification improved and multi-language support offered.
October 2005 - Significant Beta improvements continue with improved stats, including Crawl Stats, more detailed errors, Page analysis and so on.
February 2006 - Google Sitemaps Team are mobbed at Search Engine Strategies NYC; Robots TXT analysis and stats mods are added. There's a marked increase in communication from Google to Webmasters around the Sitemaps Console. There are also rumours that the Webmaster Console has picked up pace.
March 2006 - Beta phase improvements focus on fixing errors and adding user suggested improvements.
April 2006 - A whole new look: notification of violations of the webmaster guidelines, a reinclusion request form, spam reporting functions, a new webmaster help centre, an indexing snapshot and more.
June 2006 - Another Beta release, this one including expanded query stats and increased crawl error reporting.
August 2006 - 8/04/2006 - The Google Sitemaps Console evolves into the Google Webmaster Console: a new URL, tools, the new blog, a Google Group, a help centre and much more is unveiled by the newly launched Google Webmaster Central.
"[The] new name better reflects our commitment to communicate with you...[as well as] our goal to provide tools and information to keep you, the webmasters, informed and help you increase your crawl coverage and visibility on Google...the Sitemaps protocol remains unchanged and Sitemaps submission mechanisms and reporting is still available from the Sitemaps tab. We're also renaming our blog and Google Group to be more broadly focused on webmaster topics"
- Google Webmaster Central Beta
September 2006 - Faster updating of query stats and functionality to display against a shorter timeframe.
October 2006 - Crawl rate control comes out of Alpha and moves into Beta. Googlebot activity reports are unveiled and enhanced image search options surface.
November 2006 - Sitemaps.org, joint support of the Sitemaps protocol between Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft emerges. Google also starts notifying users if their site is flagged for badware. And if you happened to be an English news publisher included in Google News, we made News Sitemaps available to you!
January 2007 - Badware warnings, and a quick word about Googlebombs.
And finally, Valentines day - Valentine's Day brings flowers, chocolates and blog comments. That's right, Google takes webmaster tools out of beta and begins accepting comments on their Webmaster Central Blog.
Google's goal is to improve communication with webmasters; and while their blog, discussion forum and tools help to do just that, users can now post comments and feedback directly on the Webmaster Central Blog. The move encourages open dialogue and helps webmasters communicate directly with Google on topics ranging from crawls and indexes to site status and content submission.
Summary - Since Google's initial launch of the Sitemaps protocol in June 2005, Google have expanded their set of webmaster tools - thus, enabling webmasters to take better control of the initial crawling and indexing processes.
A move out of beta demonstrates Google's commitment to provide valuable tools and information to webmasters all over the world, as well as the most relevant, reliable and useful search results.
