Google Search Console, formerly known as Google Webmaster Tools, is a no-cost service provided by Google that allows website owners and webmasters to monitor their website’s performance and how it appears to Google’s crawlers.
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What is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console is a free online tool that enables website owners, webmasters, and SEO specialists to keep an eye on, optimize, and maintain their site’s visibility in Google search results.
It offers useful information and resources to enhance user experience and search visibility. GSC enables its users to monitor their website’s performance, track clicks, and search queries, identify crawl errors, submit new pages for indexing, and receive notifications about potential issues with their website.
Some Important Features of Google Search Console
- Search Performance
- Index Coverage
- Sitemaps and URL Inspection
- Security Issues
- Manual Actions
- Enhancements
- Links
In general, Google Search Console offers a number of strong features to assist webmasters in improving the user experience and search visibility of their sites.
How to Add Your Website to Google Search Console
In order to make use of the excellent capabilities of Google Search Console, the initial step is to link the websites and verify the property through appropriate methods.
Google offers various methods to verify site ownership, which vary depending on whether you are verifying a website, a domain, etc. Below is our detailed guide that outlines the steps required to add and verify your property using Google Search Console.
Step 1: Head over to Google Search Console and log in with your account.
Step 2: After that click on Add Property located at the top left corner.
How To Verify Your Site With Search Console
There are two distinct ways to verify ownership of a website or web property in Google Search Console, domain verification and URL verification.
- Domain Verification: Verifying the ownership of the full domain, including all connected URLs and subdomains, is known as domain verification. Usually, larger websites with lots of subdomains or pages employ this technique.
- URL Verification: On the other hand, URL verification entails confirming who owns a certain URL or specific web page. Smaller websites or those with just one page or landing page should use this technique.
To verify site ownership, both methods (Domain and URL) involve either adding a verification code or file to the website or domain or modifying DNS settings.
Domain Verification in GSC
If you have chosen to verify your property in Search Console using domain verification, the following options are available for verification.
- TXT Code: TXT code verification, which is also called DNS verification, involves adding a TXT record to your domain’s DNS settings.
- CNAME: CNAME verification is a domain verification method used in Google Search Console, which requires adding a CNAME record to your domain’s DNS settings to verify the ownership of the domain.
URL Prefix Property Verification in GSC
If you have chosen to verify your property in Search Console using url verification, the following options are available for verification.
- HTML File Upload: To verify ownership of a URL, upload an HTML file with a specific name to the root directory of your website.
- HTML Tag: To confirm ownership, add a certain HTML tag to the webpage’s header section.
- Google Analytics: By using the Google Analytics tracking code option, you can use your Google Analytics account to confirm ownership.
- Google Tag Manager: Use Google Tag Manager to confirm ownership by adding a specific container snippet to the web page’s header.
- Domain Name Provider: Add a TXT record to your domain name provider’s DNS settings to confirm ownership.
Things To Do After Submitting Website In Google Search Console
Submitting your website to Google Search Console (GSC) is just the first step in optimizing your website for search engine visibility. Here are some important things to do after submitting your website to GSC:
- Verify ownership of your site: Ensure that you have properly verified ownership of your site in GSC to access all of the available tools and data.
- Submit a sitemap: Submitting a sitemap to GSC will help Google understand the structure of your site and crawl it more efficiently.
- Check for crawl errors: Use the “Coverage” report in GSC to identify any crawl errors on your site, such as broken links or pages that can’t be accessed.
- Monitor search performance: Use the “Performance” report to monitor the performance of your site in Google search results, including clicks, impressions, and average position.
- Optimize for search engines: Use the available tools and reports in GSC to optimize your site for search engines, including improving your site’s mobile usability, fixing any security issues, and improving site speed.
- Monitor Backlinks: Use the “Links” report to monitor backlinks to your site and identify any potentially harmful links that could negatively impact your site’s search rankings.
By completing these tasks, you can ensure that your site is properly optimized for search engines and set up for success in Google search results.
Verify ownership of your site
Ensure that you have properly verified ownership of your website in GSC to access all of the available tools and data.
Step 1: Navigate to Google Search Console and ensure that you are logged in using the appropriate account.
Step 3: Under the general settings, you can now locate the ownership verification tab and click on it.
Step 4: You will now be able to view a green checkmark indicating that you are a verified owner, as well as the verification methods you have used for site verification.
Google Search Console’s most important features
After setting up your account, the next step would be to analyze your data. In the following sections of this article, we will explore some of the reports and information that are available to you.
- Overview
- URL Inspection
- Search Result
- Discover
- Pages
- Video Pages
- Sitemaps
- Removals
- Page Experience
- Core Web Vitals
- Mobile Usability
- AMP
- Breadcrumbs
- FAQ
- Logos
- Sitelink Searchbox
- Manual Actions
- Security Issues
- Links
- Setting
Overview
The Overview section in Google Search Console provides a high-level summary of website performance on Google Search. It includes total clicks, impressions, click-through rate (CTR), and average position of the website’s pages in search results under the performance sections. Furthermore, the overview section includes Indexing, Experience, and Enhancements subsections, which can be utilized to delve into more specific details.
URL Inspection
The URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console allows users to inspect and troubleshoot individual URLs on their websites. It offers details about the URL’s crawlability, indexing status, and any issues that might have an impact on how it appears in search results. It also provides advice on how to improve the URL’s ranking in Google Search.
Search Result
The Search Results section in Google Search Console displays data about the performance of a website’s pages in search results. It provides information on the total number of clicks, impressions, click-through rate (CTR), and average position of the website’s pages in search results. Additionally, it allows users to filter and compare performance data for different pages, countries, devices, and search types.
Discover
The Discover section in Google Search Console provides information about how a website’s content is performing on Google Discover, a personalized content feed for mobile devices. It displays data on the number of clicks, impressions, and click-through rate (CTR) for the website’s content in Discover. Additionally, it allows users to filter and compare performance data for different types of content and countries.
Pages
The Pages section in Google Search Console displays data about the performance of individual pages on a website in search results. It provides information on the total number of clicks, impressions, click-through rate (CTR), and average position of the pages in search results. Additionally, it allows users to filter and compare performance data for different pages, countries, devices, and search types.
Video Pages
The Video section in Google Search Console provides information about how a website’s video content is performing in Google Search. It displays data on the number of clicks, impressions, and click-through rate (CTR) for the website’s video content in search results. Additionally, it allows users to filter and compare performance data for different videos, countries, devices, and search types.
Sitemaps
The Sitemaps section in Google Search Console allows users to submit and monitor sitemaps for their website. Sitemaps provide information to Google about the pages and content on a website. This section displays information on the number of submitted and indexed URLs, any errors or warnings related to the sitemap, and the last time Google successfully crawled it.
Removals
The Removals section in Google Search Console allows users to temporarily hide a page or image from Google Search results. It also allows users to request the removal of a page or image from Google’s index entirely. This section displays information on the status of any removal requests, including pending requests and completed actions.
Page Experience
The Page Experience section in Google Search Console provides insights into how users perceive the experience of interacting with a website’s pages. It includes metrics such as loading speed, interactivity, and visual stability, as well as the website’s mobile-friendliness and security. This section can help website owners identify areas for improvement to enhance user experience and potentially improve search performance.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals are a subset of metrics that measure the user experience of website loading, interactivity, and visual stability. Google uses these metrics as a ranking signal in search results. The Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console provides website owners with insights into how their website performs on these metrics, along with recommendations for improvements.
Mobile Usability
The Mobile Usability section in Google Search Console analyzes a website’s mobile-friendliness and provides recommendations for improving the mobile user experience. It identifies issues that may affect the website’s usability on mobile devices, such as font sizes, touch elements, and viewport configuration. This section can help website owners ensure their website is optimized for mobile users, which can impact search performance.
AMP
The AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) section in Google Search Console provides information about a website’s AMP pages, which are designed to load quickly on mobile devices. It displays data on the performance and validity of AMP pages, any errors or warnings, and the last time Google successfully crawled them. This section can help website owners identify issues and optimize their AMP pages for better search performance.
Breadcrumbs
The Breadcrumbs section in Google Search Console provides information on how Google understands the breadcrumb trail on a website, which is the navigation path that leads to the current page. It displays data on any errors or warnings related to the breadcrumb structure and the number of pages that use breadcrumbs. This section can help website owners ensure their breadcrumb structure is correctly implemented and potentially enhance search appearance.
FAQ
The FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) section in Google Search Console displays data on the performance of a website’s FAQ pages in search results. It provides information on the number of clicks, impressions, and click-through rate (CTR) for the website’s FAQ pages. Additionally, it allows users to filter and compare performance data for different pages, countries, devices, and search types.
Logos
The Logos section in Google Search Console displays information on a website’s logo images that are used in Google Search results. It allows website owners to upload and manage logo images, as well as provide insights into the performance of logo images in search results. Additionally, it provides recommendations for optimizing logo images for better search appearance.
Sitelink Searchbox
The Sitelinks Searchbox section in Google Search Console provides information on a website’s implementation of a search box within sitelinks displayed in search results. It allows website owners to test and validate their search box implementation, as well as provide recommendations for optimizing the search box for a better user experience. This section can potentially enhance search appearance by providing a convenient way for users to search for content within a website directly from search results.
Manual Actions
The Manual Actions section in Google Search Console displays information on any manual actions taken by Google against a website. It identifies issues that violate Google’s webmaster guidelines, such as spammy content, unnatural links, or hacked content. This section allows website owners to request a review of the manual action after fixing the issue to potentially restore search performance.
Security Issues
The Security Issues section in Google Search Console alerts website owners to any security issues detected on their websites, such as malware, phishing, or hacked content. It provides details on the affected pages and the type of security issue detected. This section helps website owners to identify and resolve security issues to protect their website and visitors from potential harm.
Links
The Links section in Google Search Console displays information on the backlinks that point to a website. It provides data on the total number of backlinks, linking domains, top linking domains, and top linking pages. Additionally, it displays information on any links that Google considers to be unnatural and potentially harmful to a website’s search performance. This section can help website owners identify link-building opportunities and potentially disavow harmful backlinks.
Setting
The Settings section in Google Search Console allows website owners to manage their account settings and preferences, such as adding or removing users, selecting preferred email notifications, and choosing their preferred target country and language. Additionally, it provides access to the account and property settings for the website and allows for the verification of additional properties, such as mobile apps or YouTube channels.
In conclusion, Google Search Console is a vital tool for any website owner looking to improve their online visibility and search performance. By using its features to their fullest potential, you can gain valuable insights into your website’s SEO and make data-driven decisions to boost your rankings. Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, our comprehensive guide will help you unlock the full potential of Google Search Console and take your website to the next level.