Webmaster Tools & Google Analytics Team Up While Dumbing Down Search Query Tool

Webmasters around the Net have been using both Google Analytics and Webmaster tools for a long time, and now Google has finally added in the ability to link the two together as long as they are under the same Google account. This is one of those Google updates that makes you wonder why they didn't do it before, or just combine them completely already.

Either way, now your Analytics profiles can be viewed from within Webmaster tools and you can easily access a couple Analytics features as well.

They have the integration set up with links littered around both places. First off, you can access your Analytics Referring Pages from the Links to your site page within Webmaster tools.

Also, you can access the Analytics Dashboard directly from Webmaster tools by using the toolbar at the top of the page. In order to link the two accounts go to the Webmaster tools page and click the Manage drop down menu. Then select the profile you'd like to use and click Save.

Another Webmaster tools update has also been released that rounds your numbers in the Search Queries tool to the closest thousand. This would make your results prettier looking by essentially having all the numbers show up as a set of nice round numbers. For example 246,000 is now 250,000, or 12,100 is now just 12,000.

By some sort of strange logic Google has announced that it makes the results less confusing to users! Webmasters are in an uproar and we're sure this update will be rethought because when watching analytics people will always choose accuracy over anything else.

Many webmasters are saying this is definitely a step in the wrong direction, and that Google is now dumbing down Webmaster tools for no reason.