(Инструменти за уеб администратори, Eines per a administradors web de Google, Webmaster Tools, Googlen Verkkovastaavan työkalut, Εργαλεία για Webmasters, Alat WebMaster, Tīmekļa pārziņa rīki, Žiniatinkli valdytojo įrankiai, Ferramentas para o webmaster do Google, Алатке за вебмастере, Nástroje správcu webu, Orodja za spletne skrbnike, Інструменти для веб-майстра, Công cụ Quản trị Trang Web)

In our recent Webmaster Tools launch, we went live in 14 new languages, bringing our total language support count to 40! With the launch of Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Filipino, Greek, Indonesian, Lithuanian, Latvian, Portuguese (Portugal), Slovak, Slovenian, Serbian, Ukrainian and Vietnamese, Webmaster Tools joins Google products such as Google.com, AdWords, Gmail and Toolbar to reach the 40 Language Initiative (Google's company-wide initiative to make sure Google products are available in the 40 languages read by more than 98% of Internet users).

Our team is very excited to reach so many of you by offering our tools in 40 languages. At the same time, both the Google Localization and Webmaster Tools teams know that there's more room for improvements in the features and quality of our service. We hope to hear your input in the comments below, especially on the linguistic quality of our new languages.

Written by Kidus Asfaw, Google Localization

Recently we mentioned some updates in the Webmaster Tools GData API: we've just launched a whole new API, the Message Center GData API, as part of the Webmaster Tools API. The Message Center is the way that Google communicates to webmasters important issues regarding their sites—for example, if there's a problem crawling your site, or if someone has requested a change in crawl rate. Until now it was only possible to access these messages through the Message Center section of Webmaster Tools; but now you can also use GData to access it as a feed. This way you don't need to continually check your messages in Webmaster Tools, you can retrieve the messages feed automatically and be informed as soon as possible of any critical issues regarding your site.
What can I do?
The Message Center GData API lets you retrieve all messages, mark the messages as read or unread, and delete messages. You can do these tasks using the provided Java client libraries, or you can create your own client code based on the protocol information.

• Retrieve messages: The messages feed contains all the messages sent to your account. These messages have important information about your verified sites. Examples of messages include infinite spaces warnings and crawl rate change notifications.
• Mark messages as read or unread: In order to keep track of new communications from Google, you can mark your messages as read or unread, the same way that you would manage your inbox. If you retrieve a single message, this message will be automatically marked as read.
• Delete mesages: It's possible to delete messages using the GData API. However, be careful because if you delete a message through the API it will also be deleted in your Webmaster Tools account, as both interfaces share the same data.

How do I do it?
You can download code samples in Java for all these new features. These samples provide simple ways to use the messages feed. The following snippet shows how to retrieve the messages feed in a supported language and print all the messages:
  // Connect with the service and authenticate
  WebmasterToolsService service
      = new WebmasterToolsService("exampleCo-exampleApp-1");
  try {
    service.setUserCredentials(USERNAME, PASSWORD);
  } catch (AuthenticationException e) {
    System.out.println("Username or password invalid");
    return;
  }
  // Retrieve messages feed
  MessagesFeed messages;
  try {
    URL feedUrl;
    if (USER_LANGUAGE == null) {
      feedUrl = new URL(MESSAGES_FEED_URI);
    } else {
      feedUrl = new URL(MESSAGES_FEED_URI
          + "?hl=" + USER_LANGUAGE);
    }
    messages = service.getFeed(feedUrl, MessagesFeed.class);
  } catch (IOException e) {
    System.out.println("There was a network error.");
    return;
  } catch (ServiceException e) {
    System.out.println("The service is not available.");
    return;
  }
  // Print the messages feed
  System.out.println(messages.getTitle().getPlainText());
  for (MessageEntry entry : messages.getEntries()) {
    if (entry.getRead()) {
      System.out.print("   \t");
    } else {
      System.out.print("new\t");
    }
    System.out.print(entry.getDate().toUiString() + "\t");
    System.out.println(entry.getSubject());
  }
Where do I get it?
If you want to know more about GData, you may want to start by checking out the GData website. The homepage of the Webmaster Tools GData API contains a section on the messages feed, with details about the protocol. You can also download the sample Message Center client form the GData download site. It will show you how to use all the Message Center GData API features.

Written by Javier Tordable, Software Engineer

When we announced our latest round of Bionic Posters in the old Help Group, an astute webmaster noted that we had never fully introduced ourselves to the webmaster community. With our announcement of a new English Webmaster Help forum, I'm happy to (re)introduce you all to the Google Guides from around the world who will be hanging out in the English forum:

Guides in Mountain View, California (from left to right): Adam, Maile, Matt Cutts, Chris, Wysz, Matt, Chark, and Adi.

Also in Mountain View: Evan, Jessica, and Nate.

Guides in Kirkland, Washington: Susan, Riona, and Jonathan.

Guides in Zürich, Switzerland: John Mueller and Balázs.

Guides in Hyderabad, India: Koti, Reid (visiting from Mountain View), and Jayan.

Guide in Ottowa Ottawa :), Ontario: Oliver.

All of us look forward to seeing you around the forum! Our Google Guides in non-English Webmaster Help Groups introduce themselves here.

Written by Reid Yokoyama, Search Quality

Update: The described product or service is no longer available.

If you've been looking for a way to grow traffic and make your site more interactive, check out Google Friend Connect -- now in beta and available to all webmasters. Remember that with Friend Connect, you can easily add social features to your site by just copying and pasting a few snippets of code, no programming necessary! Your visitors will be able to join your site, create or link to a profile, interact with other visitors, and invite friends to visit your site. Best of all, your visitors won't be required to create yet another username and password -- Friend Connect lets them sign in using an existing Google, Yahoo, AOL, or OpenID account. To learn more, watch the video below:

So for any of you who were interested in Friend Connect after our first announcement, and also to all of the newer readers out there, go ahead and give Friend Connect a try.

Written by Mendel Chuang, Product Marketing Manager

One of the many useful features of Webmaster Tools is the ability to adjust settings for your site, such as crawl rate or geographic target. We've been steadily adding settings over time and have now gotten to the point where they merit their own page. That's right, Webmaster Tools now provides a single, dedicated page where you can see and adjust all the settings for your site.

The settings that have been moved to the new Settings page are:
1. Geographic Target
2. Preferred domain control
3. Opting in to enhanced image search
4. Crawl rate control





Changing a Setting
Whenever you change a setting, you will be given an option to save or cancel the change.

Please note: The Save/Cancel option is provided on a per setting basis and hence if you change multiple settings, you'll have to click the Save button associated with each setting.


Expiration of a setting
Some of the settings are time-bounded. That is, your setting will expire after a certain time period. For example, the crawl rate setting has an expiration period of 90 days. After this period, it's automatically reset to the default setting. Whenever you visit the Settings page, you can view the date that your setting will expire underneath the setting name.


That's all there is to it!

We always like adding features and making our interface clearer based on your suggestions, so keep them coming! Please share your feedback (or ask questions) in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Written by Jonathan Simon, Webmaster Trends Analyst and Nanda Kishore, Webmaster Tools Intern

Googlers strongly believe in dogfooding our own products. We manage our work schedules with Google Calendar, publish our blogs on Blogger, and store scads of documentation on Google Sites. So, ever since we launched our first Webmaster Help Group, we've been using Google Groups to facilitate conversations about Webmaster Tools and web search issues.
Today, however, I'm thrilled to announce that our English and Polish Help Groups are getting a makeover. And the changes are more than just skin-deep. Our new Help Forums should make it easier for you to find answers, share resources with others, and have your participation acknowledged.
You can read more about the changes on the Official Google Blog, and then check it out for yourself: English, Polish.
Q: What will happen to the old English and Polish Help Groups?
A: While our old groups are now closed to new posts, they will still be available in read-only mode in case you want to reference any of your favorite posts from the good old days. Many of the most frequently-asked questions (and answers!) have already been transferred to our new Help Forums.
Q: If I was a member of the old group, will I automatically be a member of the new forum?
A: We won't be "transferring" membership from the old groups to the new, so even if you were a member of our Google Groups forum, you'll still need to join the new forum in order to participate. Nicknames and user profiles are also managed separately, so you're welcome to recreate your Google Groups profile in our new forum, or reinvent yourself.
Q: What about the Webmaster Help Groups in other languages?
A: They'll be moving to the new Help Forum format in 2009. Specific dates will be announced in each of the groups as they get closer to their moving date.
Feel free to post any other questions about the new Help Forums in the comments below.

Written by Susan Moskwa, Webmaster Trends Analyst

We've upgraded the crawl rate setting in Webmaster Tools so that webmasters experiencing problems with Googlebot can now provide us more specific information. Crawl rate for your site determines the time used by Googlebot to crawl your site on each visit. Our goal is to thoroughly crawl your site (so your pages can be indexed and returned in search results!) without creating a noticeable impact on your server's bandwidth. While most webmasters are fine using the default crawl setting (i.e. no changes needed, more on that below), some webmasters may have more specific needs.

Googlebot employs sophisticated algorithms that determine how much to crawl each site it visits. For a vast majority of sites, it's probably best to choose the "Let Google determine my crawl rate" option, which is the default. However, if you're an advanced user or if you're facing bandwidth issues with your server, you can customize your crawl rate to the speed most optimal for your web server(s). The custom crawl rate option allows you to provide Googlebot insight to the maximum number of requests per second and the number of seconds between requests that you feel are best for your environment.

Googlebot determines the range of crawl rate values you'll have available in Webmaster Tools. This is based on our understanding of your server's capabilities. This range may vary from one site to another and across time based on several factors. Setting the crawl rate to a lower-than-default value may affect the coverage and freshness of your site in Google's search results. However, setting it to higher value than the default won't improve your coverage or ranking. If you do set a custom crawl rate, the new rate will be in effect for 90 days after which it resets to Google's recommended value.

You may use this setting only for root level sites and sites not hosted on a large domain like blogspot.com (we have special settings assigned for them). To check the crawl rate setting, sign in to Webmaster Tools and visit the Settings tab. If you have additional questions, visit the Webmaster Help Center to learn more about how Google crawls your site or post your questions in the Webmaster Help Forum.

Written By Pooja Shah, Software Engineer, Webmaster Tools Team