Google Webmaster Guidelines Is Now Google Search Essentials

Google seems to be on a roll with rebranding (Google Data Studio Rebrands To Looker Studio) and now, they have just announced the rebranding of Google Webmaster Tools to Google Search Essentials. This is a long time coming as they have gradually removed the term “webmaster” from their branding over the past few years – for example, from Google Webmaster Central to Google Search Central.

According to Google, “webmaster” is a dated term as it does not include all content creators who would like to have their content ranked in the search results – not just webmasters but also writers, bloggers, publishers, site owners, developers, creators, basically everyone.

Aside from the name, what else changed?

Google Search Essentials is now organized into three categories:

• Technical requirements – What Google needs from a web page to show it in Google Search.
• Key best practices – The main things that can help improve how your site appears in Google Search results.
• Spam Policies – The behaviors and tactics that can lead to lower ranking or being completely omitted from Google Search results.

Aside from the categorization of topics, not much has changed with the guidelines. Nothing new has been added and if you are already familiar with the content of the Google Webmaster Guidelines, there is no urgent need to read through the content once again. It contains the same information, just organized in a different format.

Check out the Google Search Central Blog on the rebrand here.