Multi GSC account support
Tabular View enriched
Page Properties window enriched
Conclusions, and what’s next
Multi GSC account support
Two weeks ago we released our Search Analytics integration using the Google Search Console APIs.
Search Analytics columns in Tabular View, available since rel. 1.6 in Professional Edition
Our users immediately loved it, but many of them - in large part SEO professionals and agencies - pointed out they normally use several Google accounts during their work. They needed a way to switch the used account when importing Search Analytics data.
That's what triggered Visual SEO Studio 1.6.1, code-named "Kerberos".
Switching / adding GSC accounts in Search Analytics
Multi-account is also used in Administered Sites verification, where you can use Google Search Console to verify your own sites (and enable advanced crawl options):
Switching / adding GSC accounts in Administered Sites
...mmh, look a little clogged here, we'll have better improve the UX design in the near future.
When adding a new Google account, the program will automatically name it with the e-mail address used to log in, and your display name (that's why we elevated the permission level asked in the authorization window).
You can also fully administer the accounts - i.e. renaming, removing or adding them - from the new Options / API accounts window:
Administering Search Console API accounts from Options window (click to enlarge)
Tabular View enriched
Every now and then we extend the data we extract at crawl time. That's the reason why you occasionally have to let the program update your projects after having installed a new version.
Displaying those data also in the Tabular View often makes sense, but not always we remember to do it... until some user knock at our door (thank Martino M.!).
The new columns available in Tabular View
The new columns are:
- "Robots meta tag"
The value of the generic robots meta tag , e.g.
<meta name="robots" content="noindex" />
- "(bot name) meta tag"
The value of the robots meta tag specific to the user-agent used during the crawl, e.g.
<meta name="googlebot" content="noindex" />
- "X-Robots-Tag"
The equivalent of the generic robots meta tag, but expressed using a HTTP header, e.g.
X-Robots-Tag: noindex
- "X-Robots-Tag (bot name)"
The value expressed in the bot-specific X-Robots-Tag HTTP header, e.g.
X-Robots-Tag: googlebot: nofollow
- "Index" (combined)
The "Index" value computed combining the four above mentioned values, using the correct priorities.
- "Follow" (combined)
The "Follow" value computed combining the first four above mentioned values, using the correct priorities.
Please notice the values were already stored and computed since long time in Visual SEO Studio (and were already viewable in the Page Properties window), so you don't need to re-crawl your sites to add them to the view. The new columns are not visible by default, their visibility needs to be switched using the gear command in the table upper-left corner.
Page Properties window enriched
This time was the other way round: we added to the Tabular View the "Canonical URL" field, and forgot to add it to the Page Properties window.
The "Canonical URL" field too is a combined value, computed evaluating both the canonical link tag in the HTML head, and its equivalent HTTP header.
Canonical URL and other combined values in Page Properties window
The "Misc" section is not always noted by users, yet it carries valuable information. I'm under the impression the Page Properties window is a little too crowded; we might do some house-keeping in the near future.
Conclusions, and what’s next
"Kerberos" is a maintenance release which, with its GSC multi-account support (most prominently used for Search Analytics data columns via Google Search Console API), meets a common requirement from SEO professionals and agencies.
There several other changes and improvements in "Kerberos", for a complete list please check the Release Notes.
This time we wish to thanks in particular two users for their bug reports: Brandon S. who really went the extra mile sending us a short video to help us reproduce a long-standing bug, and Stefano Tondi for his precise description of the reported issue.
As usual, we have a hugely long queue, rest assured we will deliver precious stuff during the next months. Beta testers, stay ready!
So, if you left some Search Analytics report postponed waiting for the multi-account feature, go and launch Visual SEO Studio "Kerberos"!
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