What is Google Search Console?
SEO specialists and others who work with websites have few official tools from Google to influence crawling, indexing and organic visibility. That’s why GSC is important to know about.
This is both a valuable tool and a kind of portal into how Google indexes your website. Among other things, it offers functionality for:
- Check which pages on your website are indexed
- Which pages are not indexed (and why they are not indexed)
- View statistics
- Tell Google about your sitemap
- Ask Google to index specific URLs
Regularly checking Search Console allows you, for example, to detect issues with crawling and indexing that are difficult to identify elsewhere.
How to verify your website in GSC
The first step in using Search Console is to verify that you have permission to access this data. There are two main ways to do this (see image).
The first is “domain verification”. You then need to add a “DNS record”, meaning a text code, in your web hosting control panel. This gives you access to all URL variants and any subdomains, ensuring full control over any issues Google may have with URL variations.
The second method is better suited if you do not have access to your web host and server. As you can see in the image below, you can for example insert a snippet of code into the HTML code via the CMS. You can also use your access in Google Tag Manager or Google Analytics to complete the verification.
Once your website has been verified, you are ready to start using Google Search Console. Typically, it takes a few days before you can see statistics and other information about indexing.
Frequently Asked Questions:
What is Google Search Console? GSC is Google’s tool for SEO specialists and others working with websites that need to rank well in organic search.
What can GSC be used for? Among other things, you can check indexing status, request indexing of specific URLs, and ask Google to remove specific pages.
