Until now, you had to verify you owned every sub-domain on a domain before you could use webmaster tools for it, while for most sites this is fine, you verify the www. version, sometimes there are a couple more that need to be done.
for example on my site, I use the non-www domain, also there is a dev. and a api. that also need their own verification meta tag/html file. If I want to use webmaster tools on another sub-domain I have to verify again… this becomes a tiresome process.

Enter the new DNS verification. You now add a TXT record to your dns and it automatically covers any sub-domains you add.
That’s it… done! There is of course the usual dns propagation you have to worry about so it may not be a quick as adding a meta tag, but it defiantly saves time in the long run.

You can find out more by visiting the Google Web master tools or popping over to the Webmaster Central blog.

The biggest change comes on the SERP’s (Search Engine Result Pages) where the navigation has moved from the top of the results to a left hand column

New Google SERP Design

Iif you cant wait for it to be rolled out worldwide, you can get a sneak peak by following these steps

1) log out of your Google account if currently logged in

2) goto http://google.com/ncr

3)  type the following javascript into your address bar to add a cookie to your browser

javascript:void(document.cookie="PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/; domain=.google.com"); alert('cookie added');

4) reload the page and you should see the new design…

Googles Nov 09 Redesign

UPDATE:

if you would like to remove the cookie from your browser, them enter the following into your address bar

javascript:void(document.cookie='PREF=20b6e4c2f44943bb;path=/;domain=.google.com;expires=Sat, 01-Jan-2000 00:00:00 GMT'); alert('cookie removed');

What is the Google Webmaster Central Channel?
Its a channel on Youtube that is used mainly by Matt Cutts (project leader of Googles web spam team) to pass on little snippets of info and answer questions made by Joe Public and his wife on the Google Forum. It is also used by other teams,  to give useful information and advise on how to make the most out of Google and the web as a whole.

Why should I watch them?
Why not? Google are market leaders in their field and they are giving advise (for free) on how to improve your website, I’ve learnt many tips and tricks from watching the videos and a lot of them have helped out a lot.

Where can I watch the videos?
Here is the answer, on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/user/GoogleWebmasterHelp

The first is called ‘Fetch as Googlebot’ as allows you to view the information that Googlebot retrieves when it visits ont of the pages on your site. This is what people, webmasters and SEO ‘experts’, are most likley to be interested in. At fist glance it appears to be just the source code of a page, and while yes it is, it does also contain the server headers that were detected, so you can use the two to determin if googlebot sees your page as you want it to.

The second feature is a Malware status page, this feature has been around for a while outside the webmaster tools, if you knew where to find it, and its a useful tool is your site does contain some dodgy code, its good to see this is now part of the webmaster tools and easier to find.
There is a good post on the Google Security Blog that can tell you more about Malware detection so rather than write about it myself, I’ll refer you to it.

You can preview the new search engine by visiting the sandbox at – http://www2.sandbox.google.com

If you would like to test country/language specific results you will need to edit the query parameters

read more at…

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/08/help-test-some-next-generation.html

http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/caffeine-update/

Update – 13/08/09 @ 08:48

the sandbox is currently off-line due to server maintenance

Update – 15/08/09 @ 08:48

the sandbox is back up and running

Opera Mobile 9.7

Last week saw the release of an Opera 10 beta, this week Opera have released a beta of mobile 9.7 (available for win mobile 6.1 only at the minute, a blackberry and android versions are in the works).
What surprised me a little was that we were in the middle of a beta for version 9.5, which has now disappeared with no update off Opera to the beta mailing list. The 9.5 beta hadn’t been updated since early February so it does make a little sense that the updates to the mobile version of Opera would result in a jump in version numbers. I download the update yesterday and i have to agree with Opera, the browsing speed has greatly improved even with their new turbo browsing feature turned off. Apart from the browsing speed I couldn’t tell much difference between 9.5 and 9.7 and the feature list is pretty much identical. One interesting addition in 9.7 is the inclusion of dragonfly (operas answer to firebug) Bug fixing via mobile hasn’t really been on my development check list, more of an after thought, but as more and more people use their mobiles for browsing I think Opera have pulled one out of the bag by including dragonfly with the browser.

Firefox 3.5:developer

Mozilla yesterday released a developer version (post-beta but pre-rc) of Firefox 3.5 to enable us to do some final testing before they push out the release candidate of 3.5.  As mentioned several time in the past, 3.5 brings a whole host of new features: html 5 entities, improved css, and not forgetting the almost mythical @font-face rule. All developers should digest the feature list soon as possible. The RC is expected to be released within the next week or two and a push to general release couple of weeks later. Download the latest release from the beta channel.

Safari 4

Apple also stuck their finger in the browser release pie by announcing an end of the Safari 4 beta at their Worldwide Developers Conference. Safari 4 also includes more  support for html5 and css3 entities and its own version of PORN private browsing mode.  You can download Safari 4 direct from the safari homepage or read more about “whats in” safari on the new features page, although not much it seems…

Google Chrome

It wouldnt be fair to not  mention  an update for Google Chrome while Im talking about browser updates. While their hasnt been all that much pumping out of the developer channel for chrome recently there has been some good news for linux and mac fans. Early developer builds of chrome are now available for both platforms but developers have urged your to NOT download them, unless of course you enjoy potential crashes and an incomplete browser. Might be worth a dabble tho…

Google have blamed the fault on a routing error that caused their servers to direct traffic via Asia which caused a bit of a traffic jam as the western world went to Asia and back.

This is another frustrating reminder of how so many websites are tied into the mountain view factory, my own website was experiencing delays while browsers tried to access the analytics’s javascript from the Google servers. This has once  again brought up that question of do we rely too heavily on Google and its services?

When an error by a third party causes a major issue with your website resulting in a delayed page load, would you continue to use them and their services? Or is it because the fault was caused by Google we should just ignore it?

I was showing a friend around my website at the time the fault was occurring and pages were taking a long time to load, but when we browsed the site via chrome the page didn’t load at all, I put it down to the internet connection in my office as it sometimes plays up and a lot of other sites were loading slowly.  If I had been showing a potential customer around my site or I ran an e-commerce website this would have been a critical blow to my business, in terms of potential sales and what impression would my slow loading website give?

The main cause of the slowdown was due to the analytics and adsence code. As Google host these on their own servers each website that has it installed has to make a call to the Google servers to download the javascript files, as most browsers don’t render a page until it has received the html code, this results in a blank screen if there is an issue including a remote file.

I think we need to change the way we include remote files, I for one am going to change the way my site uses the  analytics code so I use an ajax request to trigger the javascript rather than including it on the page. I have noticed lots of sites pause when trying to load analytics in the past and this way my site will continue to work even if Google send my visitors on a trip around the world.

It includes not just a new design but also a re-think on all sections of the current webmaster tools, how they are grouped together, how you navigate between them and also the information that they give you.

Highlights Include

• One-stop Dashboard
• More top search queries:
• Sitemap tracking for multiple users:
• Message subscription:
• Improved menu and navigation:
• Smarter help:
• Removal of the enhanced Image Search option:

For a full list of updates and more visit Googles ‘Whats New’ page or read the Webmaster Central blog post.

Google is desperate to raise the profile of Chrome as so far only converting 1.4% of internet users to its browser. The clip was originally made for YouTube by a team inside Google Japan, but due to popularity they have decided to release it via popular television networks. Initially only in the US, if trials and uptake of chrome prove positive they may roll out to other countries aswell.

This could prove very successful for Google and I think this will definitely help them push up their market share. When did you last see an advert for Firefox or Internet Explorer when not on a company owned or fanboy site? I think we are definatly going to see an Upgrade to Internet explorer 8 advert very soon.

Not seen the advert yet?  here it is…

Read more on this topic @

• Official Google Blog
• The Guardian Newspaper

“A rival to google” is a big claim to make and this has been claimed by the makers of every search engine released since the boys and girls at the mountain view chocolate factory positioned themselves top of the pile, remember cuil.com anyone?? So we will have to wait and see what happens with Wolfram Alpha, but i do hope they come up with a better name…

you can read the blog post @ blog.wolfram.com
and view the new search engine (you cant search yet though) and signup for latest news @ www.wolframalpha.com