How to add a site to Google Search Console: a guide for beginners

Seo

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Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that helps you get insights into how your site appears in Google search results, optimize content, and troubleshoot site issues. In order for a site to get into the Google index, it is not necessary to add it to the Google Search Console - but this tool will speed up the site and all its pages in the search + help improve the interaction of the site with google. And this service will be useful for both beginners and professionals.

What actions do Search Console tools and reports allow you to perform  :

• make sure Google can find and crawl your site;
• identify indexing issues and request re-indexing of new or updated content;
• evaluate the traffic that comes to your site from Google Search: how often and for what queries links to your pages appear in the results, how often users click on them;
• receive notifications about problems with indexing, spam and other problems;
• find out which sites link to your resource;
• fix issues with AMP pages, mobile friendliness, etc.

How to add a site to Google Search Console?

Create a google account and log in to it.

Go to Google Search Console at: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/home .

Enter the site's domain name with the field labeled "Resource", then click the "Add Resource" button:

The "Select Resource Type" window will pop up.

It has 2 windows (fields): "Domain resource" and "Resource with a prefix in the URL", let's analyze each of them separately.

Adding a site through the "Domain resource"

I recommend using this confirmation method, because. it immediately confirms all domains (with www, without www, with http, with http) and subdomains of the site.

We drive in the domain and click on the "continue" button.

After that, the Confirmation of ownership of the domain using a DNS record window will appear, copy the TXT record from it.

We go to the website of the domain registrar, in my case it is beget and log in to it. We go to the DNS records management section and add a TXT record there, indicate the previously copied code in the value and create it.

Or here's an alternative way to add a TXT record.

Then we wait at least a couple of minutes (sometimes we have to wait almost 24 hours), we return to the google webmaster panel and click on the "Confirm" button

After that, google will check for the presence of a TXT record and if everything is fine, you will see the “Ownership Confirmed” window. Click on the "Done" or "Go to resource" button.

txt entry can also be made on the hosting side to which the domain is delegated. Only if you suddenly move from it to another, the confirmation of rights will fly off.

Can't verify ownership with a domain name provider? Use the URL Prefixed Resource tab to access other validation methods.

Adding a site through "Resource with a prefix in the URL"

Open the main page of the site in a browser and copy its URL address from the address bar.

Then, in the "URL Prefixed Resource" window, in the "Enter a URL" field, paste it in and click the "Continue" button.

After that, the "Confirm Ownership" window will appear.

In which you can choose different confirmation options, such as:

• Hosting an HTML file on a server is the best and relatively easy way, but you can only use it if you have the ability to upload the downloaded file to the site root (where all its files are).
• HTML tag - if you have the ability to edit the source HTML code of the main page of the site, you can use this method and add a meta confirmation tag to the head section.
• Google Analytics Tracking Code - If your site has implemented a tracking code that is associated with a Google Analytics account that is available to you, you can use it to verify.
• Google Tag Manager is the same as in the case of Google Analytics.
• Google Sites, Blogger, or Google Domains account - use the recommended method for each of these platforms.
• Domain name provider - we discussed this method above.

Choose the best way and confirm the rights.

If you went this route, then ideally you should add all the mirrors of the site in the same way (you won't need to upload a new confirmation file or add new confirmation meta tags). We just enter everything in the same window “Resource with a prefix in the URL”, enter the mirrors, press enter and they are automatically confirmed, in the end we get something like the following.

Site data will be displayed in the version that your site opens with (not in the version that redirects to the main version).

We speed up indexing by adding File (of) Sitemap

In order for Google to index all the pages of the site faster (well, and index new ones faster in the future). Go to the "Sitemaps" tab. In the "Add Sitemap File" window, in the "Sitemap URL" field, enter its URL address (which opens the sitemap in the browser) and click the "Submit" button.

Sometimes a sitemap needs to be submitted multiple times for the Success status to appear. I also noticed that google does not like Cyrillic domains .rf, .rus, etc. and usually does not add a sitemap - or rather, it does, but the status will be “Not received”.

Note! The site will appear after the search robot bypasses it (no later than 7 days later).

Read Also

• 5 SEO Tips to Increase Website Latency

• Beginner's Guide to Backlinks (Backlinks)

• How to add a site to Google Search Console: a guide for beginners - New!

• How to add a site to the Bing / Yahoo search engine through the webmaster panel - New!

• How to optimize Anchor text (anchor text) - a complete guide