With all of the changes in the SEO world, it’s easy to miss new announcements. So I thought I’d mention one in this post you might have missed. One that I think you’ll find pretty useful in keeping your website in tip-top share.
“Fetch and Render”
In May of 2014, Google added a new feature to Google Webmaster Tools(GWT) called “Fetch and Render”. It’s purpose is to check and provide a list of all resources needed to properly render a web page.
“Fetch” in Action
The new feature is pretty easy to use:
1. login to GWT
2. Look in the “Crawl” section in the left navigation to locate the feature:
3. To request a page, simply enter the URL. And don’t miss the cool feature of selecting “how” the Google bot should attempt the access. By selecting the dropdown you can select “mobile” as well as the standard “desktop”. Very useful!
“Fetch” will collect and display the http headers and the like to view the actual code. “Fetch and Render” will also provide a visual of the rendered page.
Below is an example of a “Fetch”
More on “Fetch as Google”
If you’re interested, below is the official announcement from Google:
It’s a great idea to add this as part of a regular website maintenance plan. In addition a good addition to any QA plan for new pages as well.
International Digital Strategist, with a love of technology and people ... and bridging the gap between the two.
Norris, Inc. 