Google: Don't Worry If Your Google Webmaster Tools Preview Is Wrong

Mar 6, 2014 - 8:38 am 1 by

Google Webmaster ToolsYou know that often, Google Webmaster Tools shows an image preview of your site's home page on the dashboard listing view of your site profiles within Google Webmaster Tools.

What if the image of your site is wrong? Should you be concerned? Google's John Mueller implies it is really not something to be too concerned about.

In a Google Webmaster Help thread, one person was concerned because his mobile site was displayed in the preview and not his main site. John said, don't "give too much weight to these preview images."

I wouldn't give too much weight to these preview images -- they're not meant to be a representation of how Googlebot crawls the page. If you do see something wrong there, I'd still follow up to see where it came from, but it's not something that would be affecting how we index & rank your website. From what I can tell here, we do recognize your website appropriately, and can pick up the smartphone version. Since the homepage has a very different response size depending on the version that you serve, one way to dig into the details could be to check your server logs, comparing size with the user-agent that made the request, to double-check that your real users get the correct version.

These previews don't represent what Googlebot crawls or your indexing and ranking. It is likely just a style thing for Webmaster Tools.

While the preview for this site looks fine:

SER Google Webmaster Tools Preview

My corporate site has a CSS slider image feature which makes the preview for that site look all weird:

RustyBrick Google Webmaster Tools Preview

Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Google Core Update Rumbling, Manual Actions FAQs, Core Web Vitals Updates, AI, Bing, Ads & More - YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 18, 2024

Mar 18, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Google Updates

Google Urges Patience As The March 2024 Core Update Continues To Rollout

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google

Official: Google Replaces Perspective Filter With Forums Filter

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Now Offers Additional Review After Appeal Is Denied

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

EU Searchers Complaining About Google Maps Features Changes Related To DMA

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google

Google Showing Fewer Sitelinks Within Search

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Google Notifies Google Places Users Of Duplicate Listings Issues