Google's Secret HREF LANG Webmaster Feature Update

Google was looking for beta testers to sign non-disclosure agreements, if they wanted to participate in the beta of this update. This has been a secret project from Google. Google is working on a new webmaster feature around rel-alternate-hreflang which is the attribute to communicate to Google if there are alternative language based web pages for the specific web page the attribute is placed on. It can be confusing for bigger sites to use this, or even small ones. Therefore, Google is working up new ideas on this feature implementation.

John Mueller of Google said they are "working on something neat" around rel-alternate-hreflang and want some beta testers. In case you want to try it, you need to sign an NDA and be willing to test it on your site. Find below the post by Mueller.

Below is a screenshot of the webmaster update :

Here is the video which shows the Webmaster Tool Updates :

Google Updates Crawl Error Reports In Webmaster Tools

Google has released an update for crawl error reports in Webmaster Tools. It will be helpful for webmasters to understand crawl errors which are being displayed for redirected URLs.

Webmasters have always been in confusion about the crawl errors on what was it's meaning for redirected URLs and the way they were being displayed within Webmaster Tools. When a webmaster was redirected from first site to second site and there was a problem on second site in regards to the redirecting operation then it would display a crawl error and it was from first site, Here was the confusion which really meant that there was an error redirecting from first site to second site.

Webmasters were used to be in confusion and could not be able to determine what the true error was and how the redirecting was occurring. The new change will be helpful for webmasters to track crawl errors about the reasons - why they are happening, and how to fix them without having to do a lot of checking.

Google added that crawl errors like a 404 which is not a true error because the page design exists and it will not negatively impact the rest of the site’s rankings in the Google SERPs. 

John Mueller from Google said, "Finding 404's is normal and expected of a healthy, well-configured website." So we can ignore these kind of errors. Lets hope the modified and updated tool will help webmasters in determing the real crawl errors.