How do you add a sitemap in Google Search Console?

Analyzing the performance of your website provides insights, into the preferences of your audience their discovery methods for your content and the visibility of your content, in search engine results. Google Search Console provides resources and analyses to support website owners and SEO experts in conducting this evaluation.

How Google Search Console Can Help You Manage Your Website

Google Search Console (GSC) is incredibly valuable, for websites for brands and businesses. It provides insights into the search terms used by visitors to discover your site and offers data such as your ranking in Google search, clicks and impressions.

Moreover Google Search Console (GSC) assists in addressing concerns to guarantee that your website pages are correctly listed and reachable. It notifies you via email, about any identified issues. Allows you to notify Google once they have been rectified.

These features are essential. They maintain your site and enhance your business or brand. GSC provides capabilities. It’s important to configure it for your website first.

Setting Up Google Search Console for Your Website

Start Setup: Go to the GSC landing page and click “Start now.” Sign in with the Google account you want to link to your site.

Choose Property Type:

Domain Property: Gives a full view of your site’s performance, covering all URLs across subdomains, both HTTP and HTTPS.

URL Prefix Property: Covers only URLs with a specific prefix, useful for tracking specific subfolders like https://m.example.com/ for a mobile site.

Verification:

To confirm ownership of Domain Properties make sure to add a DNS record through your domain name provider. This is the way to verify domain properties.
After you’ve added your domain make sure to see if your domain registrar is included in the drop down menu, for authorization. If its not there copy the provided TXT record. Follow the instructions, from your provider. If the verification doesn’t go through at first give it another shot after waiting a hours.
For URL Prefix Properties, you can verify ownership using various methods:

HTML file upload
HTML tag
Google Analytics tracking code
Google Tag Manager container snippet
DNS record method (same as for domain properties)

Verification Methods for Google Search Console

HTML Page: Upload the provided .html file to your site’s root directory using an FTP client or your hosting platform’s file manager.

HTML Tag: Add the given HTML tag to the <head> section of your homepage. Many CMS platforms, like WordPress and Wix, allow you to add this tag through their settings.

Google Analytics: If your site is already verified with Google Analytics, you can use that verification to add your site to GSC.

Google Tag Manager: If you’re using Google Tag Manager, you can verify your site using the tags already embedded on your site.

DNS Configuration: If you’ve verified your site with the TXT or CNAME methods, you can use this method to verify subdomains or subdirectories.

The verification procedures might require anywhere, from a minutes to a couple of days for completion. If you have the choice choose “Confirm and return at a time to complete the procedure. Any unverified websites or sections will be displayed in the “Not Verified” category, within your account settings.

Setting up GSC is essential for monitoring and maintaining your website’s performance and security.

How to Add a Sitemap in Google Search Console

Googlebot typically discovers your site’s XML sitemap automatically. To expedite this, you can add your sitemap directly to Google Search Console (GSC). Here’s how:

Copy Your Sitemap URL:

Find your sitemap and copy its URL. Most XML sitemaps have a URL like “https://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml.”
If you’re using a CMS like WordPress, it might be “https://www.domain.com/sitemap_index.xml.”

Add Sitemap in GSC:

In GSC, click on “Sitemaps” in the left column.
Paste your sitemap URL in the “Add a new sitemap” field at the top of the page and click “Submit.”

Manage Multiple Sitemaps:

You have the option to include sitemaps, for content categories, like videos, articles, product pages and images.

Compare Submitted vs. Indexed Pages:

Click the three vertical dots next to your sitemap and select “See page indexing.”
This shows you the number of indexed pages (green) and pages that are not indexed (gray), along with reasons why some pages aren’t indexed.

Adding your sitemap to GSC helps ensure Google indexes your site more efficiently and provides valuable insights into your site’s indexing status.

Google Search Console’s Most Important Features

Performance Report:

Shows how your site performs in Google Search.
Provides data on clicks, impressions, average position, and click-through rate (CTR).

URL Inspection Tool:

Checks the indexing status of a specific URL.
Shows if the URL is indexed and provides troubleshooting information if it’s not.

Coverage Report:

Lists all pages Google has indexed or tried to index on your site.
Highlights any errors or issues preventing pages from being indexed.

Sitemap Submission:

Allows you to submit your site’s sitemap to help Google find and index your content more effectively.

Mobile Usability Report:

Identifies mobile usability issues on your site.

Helps ensure your site is mobile-friendly.

Security Issues Report:

Notifies you of any security issues detected on your website, like malware or unauthorized access attempts.

Links Report:

Shows internal and external links to your site.
Helps you understand how your content is connected and which sites link to yours.

Manual Actions Report:

Notifies you if your site violates Google’s guidelines.
Provides details on issues and steps to fix them.

Core Web Vitals Report:

Measures your site’s loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability.
Helps you improve the user experience.

Enhancements Report:

Identifies opportunities to improve structured data and other enhancements like AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) and breadcrumbs.

These features help you monitor, maintain, and improve your website’s presence in Google Search.

Troubleshooting with Google Search Console

Google Search Console (GSC) is a tool, for examining and assessing your website as seen by Google. It provides features to address problems concerning how the site can be crawled and the user experience, on pages.

Crawling Issues

To get a webpage to show up on search engines it needs to be checked and added to their index. Keeping an eye, on the Crawl Stats report in Google Search Console can help pinpoint any problems that might be stopping your pages from getting crawled. This report can uncover issues, like:

Fetching your robots.txt files
Resolving your site’s DNS (Domain Name System)
Connecting to your servers

How to Use the Crawl Stats Report:

Access Settings:

Click on “Settings” in the left column of GSC.
Click on “Open Report” next to Crawl Stats in the Crawling section.

Review Hosts Section:

Check if any subdomains are experiencing problems. If your hosting provider has faced issues in the past you can expect to receive a report detailing the rate of failures.

Review By Response Section:

Look at the percentage of pages resulting in suboptimal response codes.
If there are pages with 404 response codes, click on “Not found” to review these pages.

By regularly using these GSC features, you can identify and resolve issues that may be affecting your site’s performance in Google search results.

Conclusion

To start using Google Search Console (GSC) for your site first go to the GSC homepage. Click on the “Get started” button. Log in with your Google account. Decide whether to create a domain property or a URL prefix property. Confirm ownership by verifying through options such, as DNS verification or inserting an HTML tag.

What are the First Steps to Set up Google Search Console for your Website?