Google Search Console 2. Setup
Sign up and register
You need a working Google ID. That will get you logged on.
Google Search console allows many sites to be registered at once. It will not only handle sites, but t will handle single URLs. Which would be very useful, say, to track information feeds. Unfortunately, this means there is a problem with names—what are these ‘things’ called? Google chooses to call the items a ‘property’.
Registering and verifying a property
Once logged on, you need to register URLs and sites with the console. Which is in ‘Add property’ at the bottom of the drop‐down box of properties, top‐left.
You are asked to decide what property you want to register, but this is muddled with verification.
URL Prefix
For one‐off URLs. Yes the tool can delve into subpaths of the URL, so it will work, with some limitations, for a website
Domain
Obviously the ideal, but requires messing with DNS records
You’ll then be asked to verify whatever you are registering. These are the methods, they will all guarantee to Google that you own the URL or site,
If you have access to the DNS records, you can paste some text into those
Add a meta‐tag to the homepage
Upload a file to the root of the website
Use a Google Analytics registration
For the record—I have access to DNS records, but dislike adapting them. For my sites, DNS positioning seems like a poor place for later maintenance. So, despite a few limitations, I would use URL Prefix by meta‐tag or file upload. The choice between the two usually depends on the construction of the site—if I can place a custom tag into the homepage, I’d use that, but for generically templated sites, it’s easier to upload a file.
Verification results
In the console, you may need to explicitly trigger verification. This is startlingly fast, a few seconds. Oh, I know it’s only a web‐request handshake, but anything fast in web propagation is always welcome.