Herself’s Webtools

If you are not familiar with IBMs many contributions to the open source community you are missing a great deal. Code samples, developer kits, tutorials, manuals and tools abound.

One of the newer sections of interest to webmasters is The Ajax and XML section. There are several tutorials explaining how to use Ajax to add media ( images, sound and movies to your site ); add lightboxes to amaze your viewers; add in rating systems; see how the pros do it; and add cool widgets to your websites.

You might also find the Web development section useful.

Google’s now put everything all in one spot for you at Google Webmaster Central. You can access Analytics, Webmaster tools, and site status. You can submit your pages to Google, add searches, widgets, gadgets and get answers to questions all starting there.

Google also announced that it will be updating information on its Webmaster tools more frequently.  This is a great place to catch problems with sitemaps and bad links.

Google Webmaster Tools are useful tools for your websites. Webmaster tools give different information than you will get from Google Analytics which gives visitor information.

Webmaster tools will tell you when you have broken links and what queries people use to find your site.  The statistics page will also show your websites position in the search results for specific queries.

You will find the terms people use when they link to your site and which pages get the links. Google Webmaster Tools also tells you your highest ranking page by month for each site.

Even though you likely already use analytics, this tool too has its uses.  Like all the Google webtools it is free.

If you are not already reading it be sure to check out Google’s Webmaster Blog. Which is full of useful information for webmasters.

Website overview allows you to enter a website url and it will show how the website appears in the top 30 or browsers. It’s enlightening and scary.

This will save you from bugging your friends to send you screen shots or running five different computers with different operating systems at your home.

The site is slow be patient. Enter your url then bookmark the page and come back in a day or two. The tool takes a while to capture your screenshots.

Website Overview

see also:
Beginner’s tips for using CSS