Getting your site into Google Search Console

Search Console is Google's own report on your website: which searches brought people to you, which pages Google has read, and anything stopping it reading more. It is free, and it is how a new site gets found at all rather than sitting there waiting.

This is not your Google Business Profile. People mix these up constantly. The Business Profile is the map pin and the stars — see the Google Business Profile guide. Search Console is about the website. Neither replaces the other, and you want both: the profile gets you into the map, Search Console gets your pages into the results underneath it.

Your account, your property. Same rule as your domain. You are the Owner. I ask to be added afterwards with the level below that.

You will never need to send me a password. The code you pass me in Step 2 exists so I can prove the site is yours without ever touching the account that owns it. That is why these guides end in an invite: an invite is revoked in two clicks from a screen you control, and a password is not.

Read this part before you start. This is the one setup that cannot be done in a single sitting, and it is not you doing it wrong. Google will not believe you own the site until a piece of proof is on it — and putting that proof there is my job, not yours. So:

1. You create the property and send me a code. Five minutes.
2. I put the code on the site. Minutes, usually same day.
3. I tell you it is done, you click one button. One minute.

Time: ten minutes of your time, split across two sittings, with me in between.

Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in. Use the same Google account you used for your Business Profile if you have one — fewer passwords, and the two link together later.

Google offers two kinds of property. Which one you pick decides how you prove you own the site. They sit side by side, Domain on the left and URL prefix on the right, and Google does not recommend one — you have to choose.

Domain — covers your whole domain: every subdomain, and both http and https. It is the better property, and it is proved with a DNS record rather than anything on the site. Take this one if you can get into your Cloudflare account (see the Cloudflare guide) — you can then finish in one sitting and skip the handoff entirely.

URL prefix — covers only the exact address you type, and is proved with a tag I add to the site. This is the default. Pick this if you are unsure.

If you pick URL prefix, type the address exactly as your site actually answers on — almost always https://www.yoursite.com/ with the https, the www and the trailing slash. Get this wrong and Google will happily verify a property that then reports on nothing at all, which is worse than not having one, because it looks like it is working. Not sure which form is right? Send me the site address and I will tell you, before you type it.

If you chose Domain, Google gives you a TXT record to add in Cloudflare. Go to DNS, then Records, then Add record. Set the type to TXT, put @ in the name field, and paste Google's value into the value field. Save, wait a minute, then click Verify.

That is the whole job — no handoff, no waiting on me. Skip to Step 4.

Domain somewhere else? Namecheap, GoDaddy, Squarespace and the rest all take the same TXT record; only the menu differs, and it is under DNS on all of them. Send me a screenshot of the screen you are on and I will point at the button.

On the URL-prefix route, Google now offers several ways to prove ownership. The one I need is HTML tag — a single line starting <meta name="google-site- verification".

Google leads with whichever method it thinks is easiest, and that is usually a file download rather than the tag. HTML tag is often further down, or folded away under a heading like Other verification methods that you have to open. It is there — keep looking past the first suggestion.

When you find it, Google shows the line in a grey box with a Copy button beside it. Press Copy rather than selecting the text by hand; it is long, it scrolls sideways, and a half-copied line is the most common reason this step has to be done twice.

Then paste it into an email or a text to me. It will look like one long line of code — that is right, and it is the whole thing I need.

### Do not click Verify yet This is the one thing on this page worth remembering. Verify will fail right now, and it is supposed to — the tag is not on your site until I put it there. Nothing is broken, and clicking it has not damaged anything. Leave the tab open if you like, or close it. Google keeps the property either way, and the tag does not expire.

Is the tag secret? Not really — it will be visible in your site's code once it is live, which is how Google reads it. But it is yours, so send it to me directly rather than posting it anywhere.

My part. I put the tag in the site's head, deploy, and check it is really there. Usually the same day.

I will message you when it is live. Only then does the next step work.

Go back to Search Console, find your property, and click Verify.

It should pass straight away. If it does not, wait ten minutes and try once more — occasionally Google is still looking at an older copy of the page. If it fails twice, stop and tell me; do not start deleting things.

A pass says Ownership verified and offers a button through to the property. Anything else — a red panel, or the same verification screen again — is a fail, however politely it is worded.

Do not remove the tag afterwards. Google re-checks periodically, and a site that loses its tag loses its verification.

A sitemap is a list of every page on your site, written for Google. Yours is at /sitemap.xml and it keeps itself up to date — you never edit it.

In the left menu, click Sitemaps.

• On a URL-prefix property the site address is already filled in, so you type only sitemap.xml
• On a Domain property nothing is filled in, because the property covers several possible addresses and Google cannot guess which one you mean. Type the whole thing: https://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

Click Submit.

The sitemap then appears in a table underneath, with the date and a status. That table is the confirmation — if the row is there, it worked.

It will say Success or Couldn't fetch. "Couldn't fetch" often just means Google has not looked yet — leave it a day before worrying, and tell me if it is still saying that after that.

Do this while you are here, as the Owner. Google's own documentation disagrees with itself about whether the level I get can submit a sitemap, so the reliable answer is that you do it now, once, from the account that certainly can. It is a one-time job.

Paste your homepage address into the search bar at the top, press enter, and when the report loads click Request Indexing.

That puts you in the queue. It does not put you in the results.

Then leave it. A brand-new domain takes days to weeks to appear properly, and there is nothing you can do to hurry it. Checking daily tells you nothing and is a reliable way to make yourself miserable about a site that is working fine. Look again in a fortnight.

1. In the left menu, click Settings.
2. Click Users and permissions.
3. Click Add user, at the top right of the list of people.
4. Enter [email protected]
5. Set the permission to Full. It is a dropdown with three choices — Owner, Full and Restricted. Check what it says before you press Add, because whichever one it opens on is the one it will use.
6. Click Add.

I will appear in the list straight away, with Full next to my name. That is how you know it worked, and that same row is where you remove me later.

Why Full and not Owner. Google offers three levels. An Owner can add and remove other people — including removing you — and can revoke the verification that holds the whole thing together. A Full user, in Google's words, "has view rights to all data and can take some actions", and specifically cannot add or remove users or change anyone's permissions. That is everything I need to do the work and nothing I need to control your access.

Restricted is the level below, and it is too low to be useful: it cannot use the URL Inspection tool properly, which is the main thing I would be going in there for.

You stay the Owner. You can remove me from that same screen, any time, without asking me.

Common, and worth understanding before you touch anything.

Verification is not exclusive. More than one party can be verified on the same site at once, and adding me does not remove anyone. If a previous developer or agency set this up, their verification — a DNS record, a file, or a tag — may still be sitting there.

Do not delete it to tidy up, and I will not either. Two reasons. It is often the thing holding your property's verification together, and removing the wrong one locks everybody out including you. And it is your call, not mine: whether an old agency keeps access to your search data is a decision about your relationship with them, not a technical cleanup.

If you do want them gone, tell me and I will show you exactly which record belongs to whom first, so you are removing the one you mean to.

Copy the block below and send it as is. It is only their half, with my part and the reasoning taken out.

Setting up Google Search Console — part 1 of 2 This takes about five minutes. There is a second, one-minute part after I have done my bit, and I will message you when it is ready. 1. Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with your business Google account. 2. Choose URL prefix (the right-hand option) and enter your site address exactly as I sent it to you. 3. On the next screen, find HTML tag. It may be under Other verification methods. 4. Copy the whole line it shows you — it starts with <meta name="google-site- verification" — and send it back to me. 5. Do not click Verify. It will fail, and that is expected — the code is not on your site until I put it there. Nothing is broken. That is part 1. I will add the code and message you. Part 2, once I have messaged you: 1. Go back to Search Console and click Verify. It should pass. 2. In the left menu click Sitemaps, type sitemap.xml in the box, and click Submit. 3. Click Settings, then Users and permissions, then Add user. Add [email protected] with the permission set to Full. Done. You stay the owner and can remove my access at any time from that same screen.

Stuck? [email protected] or (360) 921-0148.

Last checked: 19 September 2026. Google redesigns this console regularly — if a screen does not match what is written here, tell me and I will update it.