Google Webmaster Central Now Known As Google Search Central

First it was known as Google Sitemaps, then Google Webmaster Central and now it is Google Search Central. Why? Well, the team and tools are not just focused on webmasters - the same reason Google Webmaster Tools changed its name to Google Search Console.

Google Sitemaps was in 2005, then in 2006, Google expanded the name to be called Google Webmaster Central. That name stuck for 14 years and now it has been changed to Google Search Central. I am just surprised it took so long, I honestly thought it would happen around the same time Google changed Google Webmaster Tools to Google Search Console in 2015. But no, it took five more years.

I covered the change happening in more detail on Search Engine Land - note a lot of the links 404 still or branding has not yet changed yet because well, you know how migrations go. Oh and you saw the new GoogleBot mascot, the spider robot.

Here are some quick bullet-points on what has changed:

• New blog location
• New overall home for Search Central
• Search Console Help Center will contain only documentation related to using Search Console
• Webmasters Help Community has been renamed to "Google Search Central Community"
• Social channel names will change over time, such as @googlewmc now is gone and replaced by @googlesearchc and here is the new YouTube channel
• Content is still being migrated to the new location

Here is a list of the bigger changes:

• Home page: Expanded the focus to include our entire audience, not just web developers.
• Events landing page: Get an overview of upcoming events, including events that we host and attend as speakers.
• What's new on Google Search Central: Check out the latest updates on Google Search, including changes to our blog, documentation, new Search events, YouTube videos, and podcast episodes.
• Blog landing page: Added a new home page for our blog, previously known as the Google Webmaster Central blog. We plan to move archived posts soon.
• Help landing page: Updated to include all of our help resources. Refreshed and simplified the Webmaster FAQ into 4 pages:
  • Crawling and indexing FAQ
  • Site position FAQ
  • Site appearance FAQ
  • Removing content from Google FAQ
• Documentation landing page: Get an overview of the different learning paths in our documentation, including new Quickstart guides, beginner SEO guides, and advanced SEO guides.
• Quickstart guides: A new set of guides for those that don't have much time to manage their site.
• Beginner SEO guides: A new set of guides for beginners who want to learn about SEO. New pages include: Beginners guide to Search Console.
• Advanced SEO guides: A new set of guides for advanced SEO topics. Most of the pages previously existed in the Search Console Help Center. New pages include:
  • Advanced guide to Search Console
  • Overview of Search Appearance topics
  • Block access to your content
  • Overview of international and multilingual site topics
  • What is a site move
  • Move a site without URL changes
  • Move a site with URL changes

I assume some SEOs are going to be watching the migration and doing a case study on it? :P

GSC - Google Search Central or Google Search Console

The other issue is that we abbreviate Google Search Console as GSC, but this is also GSC with Google Search Central. We are doomed!

oh boy that's confusing

— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) November 11, 2020

We didn't pick any acronym :). Sometimes ... if someone defines clear ones first externally, they'll be picked up by the community.

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) November 11, 2020

I think the name is a good one and it will take many of us a while to learn the new name...

Forum discussion at Twitter.