Google wants great content found via their search engine, so they provide education and tools to help, for free!
One of these tools is simply called Google Search Console (previously known as Google Webmaster Tools) and this a great tool for any website owners toolbox.
Google Search Console provides insight for your site
With Google Search Console you'll have access to detailed reports about how Google sees your website.
With Google Search Console, you ensure Google can find your website, and it shows up for the right search queries.
You can see errors on your site, other sites that link to you, how often your pages show up in Google search results and their position, as well as how many times they are clicked on, and more.
Google also scans your site for malware and problems and sends you an email alert with anything important.
Sign up for or log in to Google Search Console
You'll need a Google account to access Search Console, so either sign up for one, or login with a current one.
Add and verify a site with Google Search Console
Google won't let you just see any website's data, so add one and verify you own it first to get information.
For the rest of this article I'll be using the fictional website https://www.example.com/ for our examples.
Verify your site with Google
- Click the Download this HTML verification file link
- Upload the verification file to your website with FTP
- Confirm the verfication file is there via your browser
- Finally, click on the CAPTCHA and then click on VERIFY to complete the process
- Congrats, your site is verified! Click Continue.
Google Search Console Dashboard
- You should now finally be presented with the Google Search Console dashboard!
- This is the same dashboard you'll see everytime you log in to your Google Search Console
- Because we just added our site, it will take some time before Google reports data to us in the dashboad.
- The left hand menu gives different insights like Links to Your Site
- The settings cog at the top-right allows access to other settings
