GoogleWebmasterHelp just posted a new video on cool new Google Webmaster Tool.  If you read the comments you can see that it’s pretty controversial. 

Introduction to Data Highlighter

Seems like this would smooth out what you want to communicate to Google’s search engine, but it may encourage miss-use or inappropriate coding since non-web developers may end up not coding their page semantically or with “best practices” 

It will be interesting to watch how this tool evolves and how well is able to interpret the data it’s given.

@atlantarobin Not at all.  If Google puts out a new webmaster tool I think it’s definitely worth looking into.  Everything can be used for good or bad. 

I was surprised to see the controversy in the comments below the video. But there were some valid points as to the array of effects this can have, and possible agendas behind Google’s motivation to do this.  

At this point I think the best avenue is to code properly (of course, because that’s what I do —and to use this tool. 

It’s probably obvious, but just in case people miss it; this tool is relative to Google’s search engine, not Yahoo or Bing (well it’s rumored that Bing uses Google’s search results, but I don’t know for sure). And even though there are a multiple smaller search engines out their that use Google Search results, you can bet Google will be always give results that are beneficial to themselves. I say this with the idea of pay per click and how this will all fit in with Google making money from ads.

So just like facebook is a great tool and you should take advantage of it, you still wouldn’t want to give up your website—which you own.  Same type of thing here. Great tool, take advantage of it, but don’t overlook the code on your website—something that you do have control over.  –Make sense?

Thanks @supereb