New look for Webmaster Tools - includes changes to backlinks

[Prudence]

What do people think of the new look for GWT?

[drall]

I like the old look better.

[giggle]

Doesn't load propely for me. Get an error message at the top of the page. Unusable.

Error message:

"This page has encountered an error that may prevent it from working correctly."

[sean22]

I love the new look, the dashboard is more informative with most of the info on 1 page. It seems to be working better than the old WMT too because the external links are finally showing up.

[icedowl]

I also love it and find it much more useful because it goes into much greater depth. I just hope they can get it to be accurate and keep it that way because right now it shows 10 more urls in my sitemap than are actually in the file.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Looks cool.... But showing not even 1/10th of the total external links that I can see from old view. Is is dummy data modification in the calculations have been done?

[youfoundjake]

I'm digging the new look, plus i'm actually seeing more information displayed across 4 sites i monitor, although the backlink tool only shows 25 a page, sure would like the 100 per page option again..

[bumpski]

I'm being asked to verify one of my sites. Anybody else? This site has been verified for years, up till today.

Oops it looks like Google has again forgotten about CASE sensitivity! They originally specified a file with upper case characters and now they've forgotten to check for upper and lower case! (They had promised in the past they would keep checking for both!)

Maybe I'll switch to the meta-tag. Perhaps this is completely unrelated to the NEW LOOK. Sorry.

[LJCoolB]

Hi bumpski, can't say much about the new look because all my sites were de-verified as well. We are being asked to upload a new html file. Trying to determine if this was Google's intent or just a mistake on their end.

When I get back into the tool I am excited about the extra searchterm data.

[proboscis]

It's better but doesn't show as many external links, over 20% less...

[JS_Harris]

The figures are different, the new is updated to today but the old has 2 week old information still.

I couldn't check keywords easily, there is no option to list 100, 250, 500 keywords per page like the old version and i'm not clicking through 10,000 keywords 20 at a time.

I'm leaning towards the old right now but the new isn't all bad otherwise.

[nealrodriguez]

here is the googleblog's take on it

spring time design fresh! [googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com]

The new user interface is available at [google.com...] The old user interface will continue to be available for a couple of weeks to give you guys time to adjust and provide feedback.

[tedster]

>> not even 1/10th of the total external links that I can see from old view

I've edited the thread title to reflect this new bit of information from Google:

You may notice that your backlinks data differs between the new and old versions—this is because we're still filling in data for some sites in the new version. We hope that you'll find the new data more comprehensive once it's 100% filled in.

[webmaster-forum-announcements.blogspot.com...]

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Today new interface is showing around 50% of total external links from Old version. However, some of the main pages are still at only 5% of the older interface.

I believe that sites that have meta tags uploaded are not getting de-verified as only one of my sites was de-verified that was having an HTML file, rest all are working fine.

[AnkitMaheshwari]

Another thing that I noticed today was that the WMT is now showing very few 404 errors (in both old and new) and is not showing any junk 404 (which did not existed at least from 4-5 months) that were thrown till day before.

Probably this new version update might be the reason for the non-existent 404 errors that Google was showing from past 2-3 months.

[mikem1986]

Hi guys

I have an issue, since theyve added this new look all my websites have become unverified...i think. It says theyre unverified but when you go to click verify it says

Verification status: VERIFIED

whats going on?!

[mikem1986]

Also noticed that the

"1 week ago" top search queries is coming up with

"Data is not available at this time." for all my sites too

[mikem1986]

well thats odd...the verifications are working again now?!

Im now all verified again.

I went to take a screenshot and Wala?!

[sem4u]

In the new tool all of my sites are not verified.

[bumpski]

I'd go back and change all characters in your verification filename to lower case. Then I don't believe you will have future problems with verification. This seems to be a problem Google has periodically.

[2clean]

Would be helpful if there was an option in preferences to exclude same domain backlinks. Sometimes you might have 40 backlinks from the same domain.

[BillyS]

>>I'd go back and change all characters in your verification filename to lower case.

Agree.

BTW, the new version is much more helpful and appears to be more accurate as far is rankings are concerned.

[statguy]

Looks like the "talk to Google" section has been removed, and specifically, inside this section, the "Request reconsideration" link...

[WiseWebDude]

YouFoundJake,

I agree 100%! I wish they would add a 100 per page option or even a 500 per page. It is quite time consuming to click a thousand times for 25 per page. Other than that it seems OK to me.

[mikem1986]

< moved from another location >

Logged into my Google Account today and clicked my Webmaster Tools, each one has become unverified, although annoyed i decided to go in and just reverify them.

When i clicked the verify button it says on each site....

Verification status: VERIFIED

but it still gives me the option to choose a verification method? I havent reverified yet as im not sure what to do? Any advice?

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 5:41 pm (utc) on May 14, 2009]

[gouri]

If your Google Webmaster Tools is through your web host, will the web host have to update to the new look for you to see it?

[Seb7]

Prefer the old one. Old one was quicker and showed more lines of data without having to going next..next..next..

[buguela]

Anyone get a penalty after this update? I've got 3 penalties into my top 3 websites.

[johnnie]

Where do I find the link to a reconsideration request?

[chewy]

I like the option to see "anchor text" but it doesn't look like it is quite yet working like it should be.