Hey Aaron,

Interesting post, I thought the tool was just down, not that Google had acted in this way.

You must be pretty pissed tbh, I know I would be but the thing that really annoys me about this story is how little development is actually put in to Webmaster tools considering how much Webmasters do for Google.

I like having the official Webmaster tools, they make me feel slightly more secure about the status of my site (even though the figures are likely skewed) but there is a hell of a lot of functionality and details that Google simply neglect to implement into it's own Webmaster tools.

I am aware the standard response from Google on that one is "We put it in Analytics" but everything about Analytics since launch has seemed a bit off to me, how long will it be before Google has farmed enough data and shuts it down? How long before they see an affiliate site has linked to mine, sent traffic and ban me?

I think the very thin ice Google has romantically been skating on with Wemasters is beginning to crack but I really don't want a situation where everyone is at war with each other because it will only make things worse. I hope at the very least Aaron you get an apology.

Hi Aaron,

The things we used to love about Google seem to be changing fast. This is just another example of the corporate giant taking over from the principled approach that the founders once had.

The tool you made was so useful it was bound to have mimics, it's just very sad that no one had the courtesy to acknowledge the Website Health Check.

As Diablos says, none of us want a war, but it's getting harder for us to find good things to say about Google with this sort of thing going on.

Keep up the good work Aaron, the tool is the best thing to comge along for a long time.

Really great article. You, among other leaders in this field, have come to convince me of this risk/opportunity over the last few months. But it's nice to have all the facts in one place :-)

Alex

P.S. Your last link seems to be wrong. Didn't you mean to link to CopyBlogger, a post with the same name?

Sorry about that Alex...fixed the link.

Aaron, I can tell you Google's talked about adding these types of tools well before you launched your check last month. I've talked with the Google Webmaster Central team on ideas over the past year, and I can remember this being one of them from early on (and not even mind). It's just an obvious thing that you can provide. Indeed, Position Tech's had this type of tool since around 1999. It's also not the type of thing that Google just whips up in a month. They take ages to roll out new product features. Ages. So I really don't think it was stolen from you. Sucks about being blocked, though.

Thnx for the heads up Danny.