Google Webmaster also known as Google webmaster tool (GWT) is a tool which is free for every website holder and helps to identify issues like 404 pages, penalties and crawling mistakes in website and maintain or increase the performance of website in search results till the year 2015 it was popularly known as Google Webmaster but in the year 2018 the company changes it name as Google Search Console.
It only required a proper verification of your website or it really exist or not, before you enter your data in your website through Google Webmaster you have to show some prove to it that you are authorized representative of site.
Uses of Google Search Console
Google Search Console (GSC) has been designed specifically to track your website performance and optimize your website visibility in search results if you have a Google Search Console account so, it gives full details about your website that which part of your website requires work.
- First you have to add and verify or site
Verification is the first and important part while you are entering with your site in Google Search Console you have to enter a proper URL of your site exactly as it appears in browser.
Once you added your website in search console it will start collecting your data from your site.
2. Add HTML Tag
This verification method is good for the users who have a working experience in HTML code.
In search console, recommendation bar will appears HTML tag and if it is not appears in that then click on alternate methods and select HTML tag from their for verification.
3. Upload HTML file
Select “Manage File” from the dashboard of search console to verify your site and if it is not appears on “recommended method” tab, then it will be listed under “alternate method” tab.
After selecting that method it will ask to you to download an HTML file so, download it and then upload it to the told specific location and make sure you should not do any changes to filename or content the file should be exactly same and if somehow it will have changes then search console will not verify your site.
4. Verify your site with a proper domain name
Select “manage site” from the dashboard of search console to verify your site and if “domain name provider” option not appears in “recommended method” tab, then look under the “alternate method” tab you will definitely got that option.
After selecting this option “domain name provider” then it will ask you to choose your domain name from the commonly used list and if you not found your provider in that list then choose the option ‘other’.
- Add Google Analytics code
Google Analytics is the easiest and best way to generate and monitor your site’s traffic.
Select “Manage Site” options to verify your site from the dashboard of search console and if “Google Analytics Tracking” option not appears on “recommended method” bar then look under “alternate method” bar there you will get.
If your site will be verified then Always remember that you do not remove that GA code from your site it can harm your site or can do unverified too.
- Use of Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager (GTM) is the easiest and the best way to verify your site and faster than others.
Select “Manage Site” to verify the site from the dashboard of search console and if “Google Tag Manager” will not appears in the “recommended method” bar then look under “alternate method” bar there you will get.
If your site will be verified or when the Google Tag Manager will found it will let you know on your screen that it is verified.
5. Link Google Analytics with Google Search Console
Google Analytics and Google Search Console provide almost same information but there are some key differences which makes them different.
Google Analytics (GA)
Google Analytics or (GA) provides you information that who is visiting to your site, how are you getting visitors, how those visitors are getting to your site and spending time of those visitors in your site.
Google Search Console (GSC)
Google Search Console or (GSC) provides you some little more information that who is linking to your site and it also informs when it found some issues or problem in your site and maintains.
6. Add a sitemap
Sitemap is a blueprint of the website which helps search engines to found more easily your website or blog in the search results and it also tells that which page of your blog or content is important than other.
Select a site which you want to submit for Sitemaps, from search console dashboard and you will see the option “crawl” on the left from there you can select the option “Sitemaps”.
7. Fetch as Google and submit to Index
On the Google search console you will see option “crawl” on the left of the screen and then choose “fetch as Google”, by clicking on it, it will take you to the next page and if you want to fetch the entire website otherwise use only to enter full address of page which you want to indexed. Once you will enter the page which you want to indexed then click then the button “fetch and render” it will take only few minutes.
8. Site errors in Google Search Console
Nobody wants that their website have some errors but sometimes it happens with many of the website holder and no one even tells to them but the best feature of Google Search Console is that it informs you immediately whenever it will found any issues or problem in your website and also maintains your website.
If you want to check internal errors of your site then go to the “crawl” option which appears on the left hand side of the screen and then select “crawl errors” it will takes you directly to the “crawl error page” and it display site or URLs which is found error during indexing of the page by Google Bots.
Conclusion
In 2018 Google Webmaster name was changed to Google Search Console and it helps your site in maintaining or also found errors hopefully its uses will helps for site to grow more fast online.
