To help manage and administer your website both Google and Bing provide a free service to help their search engines understand your website.   You can submit your sitemap, set your preferred canonical domain (www vs. non-www), set your geographic targets,  get notified of crawling errors and a variety of similar tasks a webmaster would want to perform or know about.

To access this information, you need to login into Google's and Bing's Webmaster Tools and add your site.   Both services will require that you verify you own the site your trying to manage.  This is can be accomplished by adding a specific file to your site, setting up a domain record or adding a HTML <meta> tag to your page header.  With Semiologic's Script Manager the latter is easily accomplished.   You simply go to Settings in your WordPress Dashboard, select Scripts & Meta, enter the <meta name=……. /> line provider by the Webmaster Tools, save and then verify.   That's all there is to it.  Easy and painless site verification.

Script Manager Settings

Of course Script Manager has all sorts of other uses such as entering javascript code, including external css and javascript files, and adding additional html meta data to your header or footer.  The plugin also has the ability to run javascript code against an OnLoad event.  Pretty useful stuff to modify your site without needing to edit theme files.

(Note: Google does provide a couple of additional verification methods using your Google Analytics code or Google's Tag Manager)

Semiologic

Question by DC: What are some free, good, website building tools available for download?
I’m interested in building a hobbyist website (not a blog though) and hoping to create some residual income from affiliate advertising. I know some HTML.

Best answer:

Answer by Justin H
Have you looked at Joomla? A lot of really nice websites are built using it:

http://www.joomla.org/

Give your answer to this question below!

Globally, there are approximately 285 million visually impaired people in the world—and each one of those people has networks of family and friends. Increasing the accessibility of products impacts not only the millions of people with disabilities, but also the lives of the people connected to them.

It’s because of the wide impact better accessibility tools can have that we partner with organizations like the Vision Serve Alliance, which brings together the CEOs of U.S. nonprofits that serve the blind and visually impaired to network and share best practices.

On Thursday, November 8 we welcomed 63 of these executives to Google’s San Francisco, Calif. office. There, we showed how we’re making Google’s products more accessible to blind and visually impaired users. We also shared insight into Google’s culture—our commitment to openness, transparency and encouraging Googlers to bring their whole selves to work.

The attendees talked with representatives from the Google self-driving car team about the technology’s potential impact on mobility for the blind and visually impaired, as previously demoed by Steve Mahan from the Santa Clara Valley Blind Center. Other teams of Googlers also joined the event to demonstrate accessibility features in products like Chrome and Android. Chromevox is a screen reader that’s built into Chrome OS and the Chrome browser. Android’s built-in accessibility features include text-to-speech, haptic feedback, gesture navigation, trackball and directional-pad navigation, all of which help visually impaired users navigate their mobile devices.

In line with our efforts to empower all people with disabilities, on December 3 we’re celebrating the International Day of Disability in Google offices in North America. We’ll have 7-minute flash talks about how Google’s work on accessibility empowers different communities, and a global product accessibility improvement day where Googlers test our products for accessibility bugs.

Posted by Seval Oz, New Business Development Senior Manager

The Official Google Blog

I love shopping for gifts for my family and friends, but it’s not always easy. Fortunately, the Google Shopping team has built several new tools to help you (and me!) get an early and stress-free start on holiday shopping.

Explore products in 360-degree detail on Google Shopping
Having trouble imagining what a toy actually looks like from the online picture? Now, when searching for a subset of toys on Google Shopping, you can see 360-degree photos of the products. These interactive images bring the in-store feeling of holding and touching a product to your online browsing.

Look for the “3D” swivel icon on the product image to see a toy in 360-degree view, on HTML5 enabled browsers. We’ve also put together a Holiday Toy Collection featuring this enhanced imagery—explore the collection on this site. 360-degree imagery is coming for other types of products soon.

If you’re a retailer or manufacturer interested in displaying these rich images of your products on Google Shopping, please fill out this form.

Use Shortlists to stay organized and collaborate with friends
New in Google Shopping, Shortlists make it easier to research products and plan purchases with friends and family. Instead of using bookmarked websites and docs containing long lists of URLs, or back-and-forth emails with friends, you can now consolidate all your shopping research in one place. With Shortlists, you can easily:

• Keep track of products you like from Google Shopping and across the web
• View product photos, prices and specs side by side
• Share your Shortlist with friends, who can add their own ideas

Create a Shortlist by visiting google.com/shopping/shortlists or clicking the “Add to Shortlist” button as you browse products on Google Shopping.

Discover great deals and store promotions on Google Shopping
To help you make the most of your holiday budget, Google Shopping now shows discounts or promotions on the products you’re viewing. If discounts or promotions are available, you can click on the link and visit the retailer’s site to redeem the offer.

That’s not all…a few more new Google Shopping features
Here are a few of the other tools we’ve created to make your holiday shopping a little easier:

• Not sure you’ve found the perfect gift? Read reviews from people you know and write your own product reviews on Google Shopping.
• Found an item that’s almost perfect but not quite? Now you can view “visually similar” results for even more types of products and categories, including jewelry, coats, handbags and more.
• Buying an important gift? Look for the Google Trusted Store logo as you shop. It indicates a store ships quickly and delivers excellent customer service.
• Shopping on the go? Browse for gift ideas, find local sales and research products with the new and improved Google Shopper 3.0, currently available for Android.
• Still need some inspiration? Browse holiday catalogs from the top retailers directly on Google Shopping.

Happy holiday shopping!

Posted by Vineet Buch, Group Product Manager, Google Shopping

The Official Google Blog

August is both an end to the lush freedom of summer and the beginning of another year of student life. As a rising senior at the University of Florida, this time is both exciting and anxiety-inducing. Even though I’m looking forward to many aspects of the school year, there are certain things about college—from book budgets to calculus study sessions—that can make it a headache.

But this fall, I feel more prepared to face the daily student grind. This summer, I had the chance to intern on the communications team at Google and got the inside track on some tools and tricks to make school a snap. For example, did you know there was an extension for Chrome that helps you stay focused on your work? Yup, didn’t think so! So I thought I’d share some of my new favorite tips—my “Survival Guide for Student Life”—to help make it easier for all students to get through the coming months.

Easy ways to coordinate your social and extracurricular life

• Google+ Hangouts enables you to video chat with up to nine friends from your desktop, mobile phone or tablet. A great feature for when your club needs to discuss some last minute changes for the upcoming meeting.
• Stay on task with Hangout Apps like Symphonical, which provides a digital wall of sticky notes for virtual brainstorm sessions.
• With Google+ Events, invite all your friends to your get-together and attach a personalized video greeting to the invitation. During the event, photos from the party can be uploaded to the event page in real-time using Party Mode. So if you have to miss a party due to a study session, you can avoid that pesky FOMO (Fear of Missing Out)!
• Let your friends know what you’re up to by sharing your Google Calendar with them. Or create a shared calendar just for your study group.

Stay organized and efficient—and be prepared for the unexpected

• Stop the email flood from the ridiculous number of email lists you signed up for using Gmail’s auto-unsubscribe feature.
• No more sore eyes from crowded inboxes—Gmail’s default mode is Priority Inbox so it automatically sorts your important messages for you.
• Cite your sources! Use Google Docs’ research tool to investigate highlighted portions of your essay and then generate a citation.
• Group projects call for collaboration. With Google Drive, you can use shared folders so everyone can access materials without having to email updates to each other.
• Using your laptop or phone, you can send any documents or presentations saved on your Google Drive to Fedex to be printed, thanks to Google Cloud Print.

Get what you need and where you’re going faster

• For those of you starting at university this year, Google Maps has 360-degree panoramic Street View imagery for many campuses around the world to give you a preview of your new stomping grounds.
• Back to school shopping is one of the most fun things about August. Find your way in and out of malls and department stores with indoor Google Maps on Android devices.
• We college students can’t go too long without homemade food. Search for your next flight home with Flight Search. (If flying makes you a bit queasy, track any care packages by typing the tracking code into the Google search bar.)
• Stay informed with Google Now. This feature, available on Android devices running Jelly Bean, can update you when the next bus is coming or provide the weather forecast for Saturday’s big game.

Reading, writing, ‘rithmetic and… YouTube

• Don’t break the bank on textbooks. Google Play has of millions of FREE (emphasis is important) books readily available such as “Pride and Prejudice” and “Gulliver’s Travels.”
• With the new Nexus 7 tablet, you can take your Google Play books, music, movies, TV shows, magazines and apps (like My Majors and doubleTwist Alarm Clock) with you, wherever you go.
• Locate hard-to-find books online or at a library near you with Book Search.
• Put Chrome to work with educational apps. 
• Not a fan of traditional note taking? Chromebooks are a super fast and virus-proof laptop. It starts seconds after you boot it and will last through a whole day of classes.
• A fair portion of us students aren’t fans of mental math. Type any equation into the Google search box to get the answers you need. It can graph functions as well.
• We know we spend too much of our time watching funny videos on YouTube, but there are video channels that can actually help us learn more about a variety of subjects—from astrophysics to world history. Find more educational channels at YouTube EDU.

I’m resting a bit easier now that I know there are tools that make student life a bit less overwhelming. Here’s hoping you, too, feel armed to face the fall semester—and beyond—with Google in your backpack.

Posted by Jenise Araujo, BOLD Intern, Communications Team

The Official Google Blog

What do a celebrity blog, a video interview on a newspaper site and a cable channel’s smartphone app have in common? They’re all supported by advertising…and they’re all examples of how the lines between media formats are blurring.

These increasingly blurry lines are not only resulting in highly engaging forms of content for users, but many new revenue opportunities for publishers. A wave of innovation and investment over the past several years has also created better performing ads, a larger pool of online advertisers, and new technologies to sell and manage ad space. Together, these trends are helping to spur increased investment in online advertising. We’ve seen this in our own Google Display Network: our publisher partners have seen spending across the Google Display Network from our largest 1,000 advertisers more than double in the last 12 months.

With all these new opportunities in mind, we’re introducing new tools for our publisher partners—in our ad serving technology (DoubleClick for Publishers) and in our ad exchange (DoubleClick Ad Exchange).

Video and mobile in DoubleClick for Publishers
Given the changes in the media landscape, it’s not surprising that we’ve seen incredible growth for both mobile and video ad formats over the past year: the number of video ads on the Google Display Network has increased 350 percent in the past 12 months, while AdMob, our mobile network, has grown by more than 200 percent.

Before now, it’s been difficult for publishers to manage all their video and mobile ad space from a single ad server—the platform publishers use to schedule, measure and run the ads they’ve sold on their sites. To solve this challenge, we’re rolling out new tools in our latest version of DoubleClick for Publishers that enable publishers to better manage video and mobile inventory. Publishers will be able to manage all of the ads they’re running—across all of their webpages, videos and mobile devices—from a single dashboard, and see which formats and channels are performing best for them.

A handful of publishers have already begun using the video feature and it appears to be performing well for them: we’ve seen 55 percent month-over-month growth in video ad volume in the last quarter. In other words, publishers are now able not only to produce more video content, but to make more money from it as well.

Direct Deals on the DoubleClick Ad Exchange
Another way publishers make money is to sell their advertising via online exchanges, like the DoubleClick Ad Exchange, where they can offer their ad space to a wide pool of competing ad buyers. This has already proven to generate substantially more revenue for publishers, and as a result we’ve seen significant growth in the number of trades on our exchange (158 percent year over year).

However, publishers have told us that they’d also like the option of making some of their ad space available only to certain buyers at a certain price—similar to how an art dealer might want to offer a painting first to certain clients before giving it to an auction house to sell. So we’re introducing Direct Deals on the Doubleclick Ad Exchange, which gives publishers the ability to make these “first look” offers. For example, using Direct Deals, a news publisher could set aside all of the ad space on their sports page and offer it first to a select group of buyers at a specific price, and then if those buyers pass on the offer, automatically place that inventory into the Ad Exchange’s auction.

Looking back at that blog, news site and app, we’d like them to have one more thing in common—being able to advantage of new opportunities to grow their businesses even further. These new tools, together with the other solutions we’re continuing to develop, are designed to help businesses like them—and all our publisher partners—do just that, and get the most out of today’s advertising landscape.

Posted by Neal Mohan, Vice President of Display Advertising

The Official Google Blog