“With the Google Search Console tool you can measure the search traffic and performance of your website; you can fix issues and keep your website at the top of Google search results.”
The Google Search Console is a very important tool for the foundation of Digital Marketing. You will get information of basic things like indexing, crawling and how Google’s bots work.
Whenever we create a website, Google’s search bots / web crawlers or spiders visit that website and record all the data. Web crawlers read the data through code, thus recording the website’s text, images, and website code. Based on that recorded data, Google shows your website to people searching on the Internet and also keep a record of every visitor.
If there is an error on any page of the website, bots also records it. Google has all the information of any website but it does not show complete information to everyone. Google gives all this information only to the owner of that website.
Let me tell you that Google Webmaster and Google Search Console both are the same. In 2015 Google Webmaster was modified and renamed as Google Search Console.
Google Search Console helps Google crawler to find and crawl our website. Once your website is indexed and in the future if you add new content or make any changes to it, you can re-index it through Google Search Console. If there is an error related to spamming, crawling or indexing, Google Search Console notifies us so that we can fix the problem. Google Search Console guides us in troubleshooting issues for website speed, mobile usability and other search features.
How to Add a New Website to Google Search Console?
To sign up in Google Search Console, you have to type search.google.com in your browser. If you have not added any websites yet and you are using Google search console for the first time then there will be no data show in the new account.
After signing up in Google Search Console, you have to click on the Add Property. We can add any website in two ways. The first method is the Domain and the second is the URL Prefix.
Domain:
If you add through the domain property, then all the subdomains in your domain will be added automatically and you don’t have to add http and https separately.
In Domain method your website’s property will add through DNS verification. When you use the domain method, you have to type your subdomain and click on the Continue button.
A new page will open in which you will see the TXT record, you have to copy it and go to the cPanel of your website and paste it.
Step by step guide is as follows –
Login to your domain provider’s website, open your account, go to cPanel and select the zone editor in domain section. In the zone editor, you have to select your domain and click on Manage where you have to select your domain again, in type menu you have to select TXT and in the record you have to paste the TXT record and click on add record button.
After click on the Add record button, you have to return to the page where you copied the TXT record and click on the verify button. After click on the verify button, your account will be verified.
URL Prefix:
If you add your website through URL Prefix, then you will have to enter a specific address inside the URL Prefix. For example, if your website was previously http and now you have changed it to https, then you need to add them separately.
When you use the URL Prefix method, you have to type your complete website address carefully. Make sure if your website is http then type http and if https then type https and click on the Continue button. A new page will open in which you will see the HTML file, you have to copy it and upload it to the root of your website.
It also has various types of verification method in which HTML tag is the easiest way to verify your website. You have to copy HTML tag and paste it in the head section of your website. For this go to the appearance of your website dashboard and click on the theme editor, go to the header.php & paste it under the head tag and click on update file.
After click on the update file, you have to return to the page where you copied the HTML tag and click on the verify button. After click on the verify button, your account will be verified.
With these two methods you can connect your website to Google Search Console. You can add your website using any of these methods.
What Types of Data are Available on Google Search Console?
After connecting to Google Search Console you will see the dashboard like this.
This is the overview page of Google Search Console. Here you will find performance, coverage and enhancement report of your website.
Performance Report:
In performance tab you will get 3 types of search report – web, image and video. By default Google Search Console shows web reports, you can filter as per your requirement. In it you will see data of 3 months but you can filter it between 7 days to 16 months. By clicking on the new button in the Performance tab, you can see the performance of your website on the basis of query, page, country and device.
Apart from this in the last 3 months, how many clicks have been made to your website?, how many impressions have occurred?, average CTR and average position will appear.
From the queries tab, you will get to know after which search your website was shown to visitors, how many times it was clicked and how many impressions were received. The Pages tabs let us know which pages were shown in the search results. How many times it has been clicked and how many impressions received on it. From the Countries tab, you can find out from which countries traffic has come to your website.
In Devices tab, you can see through which device the visitor visited to your website. Visited from mobile, desktop or tablet. Separate reports of mobile, desktop or tablet will appear in this section. Search Appearance and Dates tab, which shows information related to AMP non-rich results, web light results and dates.
URL Inspection:
On clicking URL inspection, a search bar will appear, in which you can paste a link to the page or post of your website and see if Google has indexed this page or not. If indexed, is it mobile friendly or not. In the future if you add new content or make any changes to it. You can submit your request for re-index. Google will re-crawl your page or post and record the changes.
Coverage:
The coverage tab will let you know, how many pages of your website has been indexed by Google. How many pages have errors or warnings? If there is an error in any page, you can fix it from here.
Sitemaps:
By clicking on the sitemaps, you can submit the sitemap of your website to Google. So that Google can crawl and index all the pages of your website.
Removal:
With the help of the removal tab, you can remove the properties of your website and page or post from Google Search Console that you do not want to index.
Speed:
In the Speed tab you will find a tool from Google (PageSpeed Insights), using which you can know the speed of your website and you can improve your website speed if there is any error.
Mobile Usability:
The Mobile Usability tab shows how many pages of your website are performing well on mobile and how many pages are problematic.
Sitelinks searchbox:
Sitelinks search box shows data related to Google SERPs. SERPs stand for Search Engine Results Pages.
If there is a problem with any page of your website, you can find out with the help of Google Search Console. So that you can improve the performance of your website and increase traffic.
I hope you have got what is Google Search Console and all the information related to it’s use. It has always been my endeavor through our blog you can get complete information on the given topic. So that you don’t have to go anywhere else.
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