21 January 2009 | Author: M. Thomson SEO & Affiliate Consultant

Google webmaster tools to add set preferred website?

Google Webmaster Tools is a useful resource for any budding webmaster or search agency that is keen to know more about a website's visibility on Google. This is because it offers some useful information about websites - for example, how many backlinks each page possesses.

Once your website has been verified by Google Webmaster Tools, there are particular settings and options that allow you to provide Google with information on your particular preferences.

One of these settings is to advise Google on your preferred domain.








This is a great tool as it tells Google to crawl and display your website's results with either "www" or "non-www" at the start of your domain. This is perfect if you are having canonicalisation issues - i.e., difficulties in conforming your website to certain specifications.

Multiple Domains

One of the key advantage points of Google Webmaster Tools is that it allows non-SEO savvy users to learn more about their site.

A common task when buying any domain name is to purchase any variations or spelling mistakes. This prevents cyber squatters buying them with the intent to capture any traffic they may gain.

Many webmasters then launch their website and point any other misspelled registered domains towards the correct URL. This makes sense as, if anyone does happen to land on any of the other domains you have bought, you want to direct them straight to the correct website.

However, in many ways, this thoughtful usability suggestion could end up impacting your search engine rankings. By owning additional domain names and not configuring them correctly, multiple versions of your main domain could inevitably be generated, creating masses of duplicate content - a sure fire way to confuse Google which domain is the original author of content.

How Google Could Help

If you set-up additional domains and you have your website verified, you will notice that you can then verify the other domains too. This is because the verification process works by using the same verification file or Meta tag.

With this knowledge, Google could then create an additional setting within the Options available to allow a website owner to select a domain of their choice to rank, similar to the way in which the preferred domain works.











By doing so, this could allow technically restricted websites that have multiple domains to solve the issue. Google could then take note of the preferred domain, update its crawling and display your websites within its index.

As Google Webmaster Tools continually expands to offer website owners more flexibility over their sites, bigmouthmedia predicts and welcomes the idea that options, such as the one highlighted in the article, may be introduced over time - you know where you heard it first folks.

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