Google rebrands Webmaster Tools as ‘Google Search Console’ to target ‘everyone who cares about Search’

Google is rebranding its Webmaster Tools product as the Internet giant looks to be more inclusive of “everyone who cares about Search.”

For the past decade or so, Google has offered Webmaster Tools as a free service for website owners to analyze their site’s indexing and presence in Google Search. One of the more popular elements of the service are Search Analytics reports (formerly known as Search Queries reports), which deliver data around how a website’s content shows up to users in search results. And that’s the key here — it’s potentially useful to a myriad of end-users, but it seems the ‘”Webmaster” element of the name may deter others from using it.

Now known as Google Search Console, Google wants to broaden the appeal of the service beyond those with the grandiose title of webmaster — which, if you didn’t know, is basically the person in charge of maintaining a website.

In short, Google wants to target everyone, from designers and search engine optimization (SEO) specialists, to marketers and hobbyists. “What you all share is a desire to make your work available online, and to make it findable through Google Search,” explains Michael Fink, product manager Google Search Console, in a blog post.

The refreshed branding will be rolling out across the board over the next few weeks.