Webmaster tools - what are they for and how to use them?
Porady
21 July 2025
Without the work of webmasters, the presence of a website in the first positions in search results would be impossible. In addition to experience, these people need specialised tools to make their task easier. Read on to find out who a webmaster is and what tools he or she uses to ensure that a website ranks as high as possible in Google and its business success.
Tools for webmasters - how do they work?
The visibility of a website requires regular efforts to create and publish content. In addition to this, it is also crucial to introduce new options for users and to keep the site secure. These tasks are carried out by webmasters, i.e. the people who administer the website. Their work is facilitated by tools such as Google Search Console, which allows them to manage the website in accordance with the guidelines of the owners of by far the most popular search engine in the world.
In practice, webmaster tools are nothing more than applications used to properly build a website and work on its content. The most popular of these are available in two forms. Google's proposal for webmasters works as a web application. GTMetrix, for example, was created in the same way. Another popular solution, Yoast SEO, is a plug-in for the WordPress platform. Both types of tools are equally effective, as they do not strain the resources of the device on which the site is being optimised. This allows the webmaster to check its performance as the end users would see it.
What are webmaster tools used for?
Thanks to specialised tools, the webmaster gains, among other things, data on the speed of the site, together with tips on what can be improved to make it run more efficiently. These applications are also used to assess the content in terms of its positioning in search results. All information about how Google indexes the site, including an extract of the errors that prevented it from being displayed, is presented in the form of a report.
It is worth remembering that Google is not the only search engine that webmaster tools take into account. Chrome, Opera and Firefox (as well as other, less popular browsers), however, set Google as the default search engine. For this reason, webmaster software is mainly used to index and position a website with this in mind. The increasing popularity of Microsoft Edge is contributing to the increasing use of Bing Webmaster Tools, a tool for optimising a website for Microsoft's search engine. 
What other data do webmaster tools provide?
Google tools and other applications for webmasters are useful because, thanks to them, the person in charge of the site does not also have to locate errors in the HTML code (in which sites are created) and monitor the links from which Internet users connect to the site. The messages shown by the application make it possible to remedy problems that place a site low in the search results, and therefore have few hits.
It is important to remember that a website for webmasters is not always like an open book. For example, it is sometimes impossible to predict which domains have links to it. If Google's robots detect that links are placed on sites with a bad reputation (considered potentially viral, for example), it may, for reasons of user safety, lower the positioning in favour of sites with verified redirects.
Tools for webmasters - key features using Yoast SEO and GTmetrix as examples
The most popular free tool for webmasters is Google Search Console. Due to the fact that the vast majority of sites on the internet are based on the WordPress platform, Yoast SEO is also very popular. This plug-in is available in a free and a paid variant. The limitations of the free version (including the lack of synonym optimisation for keywords) lead many companies employing webmasters to opt for the paid solution. One feature that comes in handy in day-to-day website management is the configuration of .htaccess commands. This makes it possible, for example, to shorten links that are too long, to restrict access to the site by undesired persons and applications or to decide whether users can download files.
Interesting webmaster tools are also offered by GTmetrix. Like Yoast SEO, you can use either the free or paid version. The free one offers, above all, the option to test the speed of a website. This function is one of the key ones, as the loading time of a website largely determines its position in the organic (i.e. natural, visible to the Internet user) search results. In the paid version, speed tests can be automated. In other words, the GTmetrix application can perform them itself at intervals specified by the webmaster. 
How do I add a website to Google's webmaster tools?
Adding a new website to Google Search Console is not necessary for it to be detected by crawlers, the search engine indexing robots. So why do site owners choose to submit it? Because of the time that elapses between the launch of the site and it being found by the algorithms. Simply notifying the existence of a new site is fortunately only a few simple steps. The first is to enter Google's primary tool for webmasters, which is just Search Console. Next, click on the Site Maps tab and then on Add New Site Map. A tab will then appear into which you can paste the link to the site and press Submit.
This is enough for the crawlers to start processing the search results with the new site in mind. However, this is not enough for every webmaster. To make sure it has started to be indexed, you need to go to Google's homepage and enter site:addressstrony.pl in the search section. If a link to the site does not appear when you click Search in Google, this means that it has not yet started to be indexed.
Why are webmaster tools so important?
The correct indexing and positioning of a website determines its visibility in search results. Without this, it would be impossible for various types of e-commerce entities, such as online shops and auction portals, to generate revenue. The effectiveness of these tools is sometimes (and even often) greater than advertising. Hundreds of banners and promotional videos cause annoyance rather than curiosity in Internet users. Meanwhile, ranking as high as possible in the search results is a guarantee of increased web traffic and thus a chance to attract customers to your offer.
Applications that help web optimisation specialists are crucial to thousands of online businesses. In an age when it is becoming increasingly common to move various aspects of life into virtual reality, they provide the visibility so necessary to achieve quite real business success.
Is site optimisation based on webmaster tools enough?
Hiring specialists and implementing measures to ensure that the website is found by internet users is, of course, not enough. In order to achieve success, the owner of the domain should, among other things, conduct the broadest possible marketing campaign. The webmaster will be helped, for example, by sponsored articles placed on verified portals. This helps to suggest to Google's algorithms the high value of a given website and thus to improve its position in search results.
In doing so, it is worth being mindful of which webmaster tools one chooses. For professional web analytics, you need programmes that allow for comprehensive verification of a website's performance. For this reason, in addition to free solutions, it is worth betting on more advanced paid tools. This provides the domain owner with a complete picture of the functioning of his or her site. This allows the owner to react on an ongoing basis to unsatisfactory results and to introduce changes, such as link building with sponsored texts, starting a blog with internal linking and the best possible positioning of content based on key phrases.
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