Webmaster tools are used by site owners and developers to determine how search engines see their sites in terms of inbound and outbound links and search query used that lands users to their sites. With the recent launch of MSN Live Search Webmaster Center, the 3 major search engines are now in equal footing in terms of providing this nifty tool for webmasters and site owners.
But unfortunately, the webmaster tools of these 3 major search engines are not the same in terms of providing useful site information. In terms of giving inbound and outbound links analysis and search query/keywords analysis, the 3 search engines differ in so many ways.
Here’s a head-to-head comparison of how the webmaster tools of these 3 major search engines present relevant site data and how useful this presentation in answering webmaster and site owners’ needs.
Yahoo’s Site Explorer presents inlinks by listing the different sites that links to a user’s site through deep inlinks within the different parts of the referring site. The site explorer does not give data on which keywords are performing well for the site. That is which keywords brought more traffice.
MSN Live Search Webmaster Center
MSN Live Search present this data in terms of outbound links (Top links from) and inbound links (Top links to). However it does not give the number of inbound links but just rank these based on its popularity and perhaps the number of times the inbound links from other sites were clicked. The same is true for the outbound links. In addition to the ranking, Live Search Webmaster Center also gives the geographic location of the domain which provided the inbound or outbound links and the language used by the site.
For the keyword analysis part, to view which keywords in the different site pages are performing well for a particular site, users must enter the keywords before MSN gives a listing of of the pages and a ranking of how well this keyowrds performed for the site.
Google’s webmaster tools beat the other two search engines’ tools in terms site link and keyword analysis. Inbound links are presented in tabular list and gives the number of inbound links from external sites. Clicking on the number of external links will direct the user to the list of sites with links that points to a user’s site. In addition, Google Webmaster Tools also gives the number of links from the site to another pages in the same site.
For keyword analysis, Google Webmaster Tools have the Top Search Queries that presents which keywords perform well in terms of returning pages from a user’s site. Top Search Queries data spans up to six months coverage. This is very useful for search engine optimizers in better optimizing their site for a specific keyword.
Clearly, Google Webmaster Tools beat the tools of the other two search engines big time. Since MSN Live Search is still in its infancy stage, it definitely pales in comparison with Google’s Webmaster Tools. If Yahoo’s Site Explorer does not make a revamp/restructure/redesigned immediately, it may find itself at the back of MSN in this search engines’ race. But yes, Google’s webmaster tools provide the best data and is the most useful for webmasters and site owners.
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Comments
11 responses so far ↓
Mercy on Dec 7, 2007 at 1:56 am
Google webmaster tool is the best among three. Live webmaster tool shows the green bar, and they call it “domain rank.” This really wires me. Can anyone explain me this? How they are assigning the domain rank for each domain?
Anadir Sitio on Dec 7, 2007 at 4:08 am
Like always Google’s webmaster tools beat all of others.
Search Marketing Specialist on Dec 7, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Again, as usual Google beats out the others. I have faith in MSN, however. They FINALLY seem to be taking SEO and PPC markets seriously with recent (and much needed) improvements to adCenter and the launch of Webmaster Central. They certainly have the capability to take a bite out of at least Yahoo!’s hold on the industry.
That being said, I am also curious about the ‘domain rank’?? It doesn’t coincide with Google’s PR so ..?? what gives?
Ankur on Dec 9, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Well, i’m using Google webmaster tools right from the starting and haven’t tried anything yet. I’ll give a try to other tools too.
SEO Champion on Dec 18, 2007 at 8:08 am
As expected, G’s webmaster tool outrank them all but we have yet to see when other features are added to MSN and Yahoo. We know these 2 are closely catching up with G.
Egyptian Mau Breeder on Jan 15, 2008 at 11:04 pm
What’s up with not being able to check your backlinks on MSN??? It used to give the best details.
SEO Web Design on Jan 20, 2008 at 8:19 pm
When Webmasters Tools is concerned, Google really does a better job. Good interface and deeper analysis. Together with Google Analytics and Trends, these few tools already addressed many SEO issues for free.
Egyptian Mau Breeder on Jan 22, 2008 at 6:39 pm
I agree, google couldn’t of had a better way for people to fall in love with their search engine. Google tools and analytics are priceless! It had done wonders for my Egyptian Mau breeders directory!
iain on Feb 13, 2008 at 9:36 am
i have spent the last two weeks getting my game website noticed and i have it down to a about 4 mill in alexa ranking,i suppose i will have to wait on everything catching up as you can wait some time to be added to some directorys etc.using google adwords as well as voting websites and these seem the best options at the moment.my backlinks have disapeared and my msn is half what it was as well so all the work i done feels like a waste of time,Just how long do i need to keep plugging away for.google adwords is not bringing a huge amount of traffic merely a trickle to my site,i have added my site to all big directorys and more besides but dont see any benifits the only time i saw any immediate benefit was with the voting game sites when i added them.Am i going in the wrong direction or will this also improve my alexa rating etc ?
cameron on Apr 3, 2008 at 8:17 am
I recently included my site in live search webmaster tools. The results so far are a waste of time. The Domian rank shows 4 or 5 for everything and, since I don’t know what that means, it is essentially useless. I have seen no improvement to indexing since submitting my site map. Google is far superior.
Maikeru76 on Aug 27, 2008 at 8:41 pm
Google Webmaster is way more useful. Yes, it has its cons but everyone on the Web (whether they agree or not) knows that it is the most intuitive search engine.
and by the way, news flash, Google has the largest market share on online searches globally. I use Google’s Insights too(http://www.google.com/insights/search/#). Keyword analysis with timeline.
Great article, fellow traveller c”,
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