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Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Webmaster Tools added lots of new functionality over the past year, such as improvements toSitemapsandCrawl errors, as well as the newUser Administrationfeature. In recent weeks, we also updated the look and feel of our user interface to match
Google's new style. In order to keep bringing you improvements, we occasionally review each of our
features to see if they're still useful in comparison to the maintenance and support they require.
As a result of our latest round of spring cleaning, we'll be removing the Subscriber stats
feature, the Create robots.txt tool, and the Site performance feature in the next two weeks.
Subscriber stats reports the number of subscribers to a site's RSS or Atom feeds. This
functionality is currently provided in Feedburner, another Google product which offers its own
subscriber stats as well as other cool features specifically geared forfeedsof all types. If you are looking for a replacement to Subscriber stats in Webmaster Tools, check
outFeedburner.
The Create robots.txt tool provides a way to generaterobots.txtfiles for the purpose of blocking
specific parts of a site from being crawled by Googlebot. This feature has very low usage, so
we've decided to remove it from Webmaster Tools. While many websites don't even need a robots.txt
file, if you feel that you do need one, it's easy to make one yourself in a text editor or use one
of the many other tools available on the web for generating robots.txt files.
Site performance is aWebmaster Tools Labsfeature that provides information about the average load time of your site's pages. This feature
is also being removed due to low usage. Now you might have heard our announcement from a couple of
years ago that the latency of a site's pages is afactor in our search ranking algorithms.
This is still true, and you can analyze your site's performance using theSite Speedfeature in Google Analytics or using Google'sPageSpeedonline. There are also
many other site performance analysis tools available likeWebPageTestand theYSlowbrowser plugin.
If you have questions or comments about these changes please post them in ourHelp Forum.
[[["Easy to understand","easyToUnderstand","thumb-up"],["Solved my problem","solvedMyProblem","thumb-up"],["Other","otherUp","thumb-up"]],[["Missing the information I need","missingTheInformationINeed","thumb-down"],["Too complicated / too many steps","tooComplicatedTooManySteps","thumb-down"],["Out of date","outOfDate","thumb-down"],["Samples / code issue","samplesCodeIssue","thumb-down"],["Other","otherDown","thumb-down"]],[],[[["\u003cp\u003eGoogle Webmaster Tools is removing the Subscriber stats, Create robots.txt, and Site performance features due to low usage and the availability of alternative solutions.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eFeedburner is recommended as a replacement for the Subscriber stats feature for tracking RSS or Atom feed subscribers.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWebsite owners needing a robots.txt file can easily create one using a text editor or other readily available tools.\u003c/p\u003e\n"],["\u003cp\u003eWhile Site performance is being removed, site speed remains a factor in search ranking, and Google recommends using Google Analytics' Site Speed, Google's PageSpeed, or other tools like WebPageTest and YSlow for performance analysis.\u003c/p\u003e\n"]]],["Webmaster Tools will remove three features within two weeks: Subscriber stats, Create robots.txt tool, and Site performance. Subscriber stats can be replaced with Feedburner. The robots.txt tool had low usage, and users can create their own or use alternative web tools. Site performance information is still relevant for search ranking and can be analyzed with Google Analytics' Site Speed, PageSpeed, or other third-party tools like WebPageTest and YSlow.\n"],null,["# Webmaster Tools spring cleaning\n\nTuesday, April 24, 2012\n\n\nWebmaster Tools added lots of new functionality over the past year, such as improvements to\n[Sitemaps](/search/blog/2012/01/whats-new-with-sitemaps) and\n[Crawl errors](/search/blog/2012/03/crawl-errors-next-generation), as well as the new\n[User Administration](/search/blog/2012/03/safely-share-access-to-your-site-in)\nfeature. In recent weeks, we also updated the look and feel of our user interface to match\nGoogle's new style. In order to keep bringing you improvements, we occasionally review each of our\nfeatures to see if they're still useful in comparison to the maintenance and support they require.\nAs a result of our latest round of spring cleaning, we'll be removing the Subscriber stats\nfeature, the Create robots.txt tool, and the Site performance feature in the next two weeks.\n\n\nSubscriber stats reports the number of subscribers to a site's RSS or Atom feeds. This\nfunctionality is currently provided in Feedburner, another Google product which offers its own\nsubscriber stats as well as other cool features specifically geared for\n[feeds](https://support.google.com/feedburner/bin/answer.py?answer=79408)\nof all types. If you are looking for a replacement to Subscriber stats in Webmaster Tools, check\nout\n[Feedburner](https://feedburner.google.com/).\n\n\nThe Create robots.txt tool provides a way to generate\n[robots.txt](/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots/intro) files for the purpose of blocking\nspecific parts of a site from being crawled by Googlebot. This feature has very low usage, so\nwe've decided to remove it from Webmaster Tools. While many websites don't even need a robots.txt\nfile, if you feel that you do need one, it's easy to make one yourself in a text editor or use one\nof the many other tools available on the web for generating robots.txt files.\n\n\nSite performance is a\n[Webmaster Tools Labs](https://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=106792)\nfeature that provides information about the average load time of your site's pages. This feature\nis also being removed due to low usage. Now you might have heard our announcement from a couple of\nyears ago that the latency of a site's pages is a\n[factor in our search ranking algorithms](/search/blog/2010/04/using-site-speed-in-web-search-ranking).\nThis is still true, and you can analyze your site's performance using the\n[Site Speed](https://analytics.blogspot.com/2012/03/measure-your-websites-performance-with)\nfeature in Google Analytics or using Google's\n[PageSpeed](https://pagespeed.web.dev/) online. There are also\nmany other site performance analysis tools available like\n[WebPageTest](https://www.webpagetest.org/) and the\n[YSlow](https://yslow.org/) browser plugin.\n\n\nIf you have questions or comments about these changes please post them in our\n[Help Forum](https://groups.google.com/a/googleproductforums.com/forum/#%21forum/webmasters).\n\nWritten by\n[Jonathan Simon](/search/blog/authors/jonathan-simon),\nWebmaster Trends Analyst"]]
