How to Verify Your Site Ownership in Google Search Console
Most probably you heard about Google Search Console or GSC in your SEO Journey? Basically GSC is a free tool released by Google to Track and analyze your website user behaviour in Google SERP. So, If you are looking on how to verify your site ownership using GSC in easy methods, Don’t worry I will be explaining about different ownership verifications available on GSC in this blog. Before that let me tell you what ownership verification is. GSC Site Verification is nothing but telling Google that you have full access to the domain and you are the authorised person to claim the Google Search Console Account. So now let’s talk about why Ownership verification is important for your SEO Activities.
Why is Ownership Verification Important?
As you know, While doing Search Engine Optimization for your website you have to analyse how your site is performing in Google SERP results. GSC helps site owners to analyse the interaction rate and impressions gained from google. Therefore it is always important to verify the ownership in GSC or else you will be missing some valuable insights about your site which will then help you to plan SEO strategies in future
Step-by-Step Guide to Verify Site Ownership:
Step 1: Access Google Search Console:
Go to Google Search console by entering the name in google search, Upon clicking you will be asked to Sign in to your Google account or create a new one if you don’t have an existing one. Navigate to Google Search Console and select “Add Property” to begin the verification process. On a general note, Properties is a search console term for identifying which website is connected and it represents a website’s data
Step 2: Select Property Type
Once you login you can see multiple options in property. Domain and URL prefix are the two types of properties available to get your website verified. Each property type has its own pros and cons, for example if you select the domain property every subdomain created within the domain will be automatically added to the newly created property where it is not possible in URL Prefix property where the exact URL will only be tracked.
Step 3: Choose Verification Method
Select the website you want to verify ownership for or add a new property if it’s not already listed. Then, choose one of the available verification methods recommended for your site. Options include HTML file upload, HTML tag, domain name provider, or Google Analytics verification.
Step 4: Implement Verification Method
Follow the instructions provided by Google for your chosen verification method. This may involve uploading a specific HTML file to your website’s root directory, adding a meta tag to your site’s homepage, or verifying through your domain name provider or Google Analytics account.
Step 5: Verify Ownership
Once you’ve implemented the verification method, return to Google Search Console and click the “Verify” button. Google will verify the presence and validity of the verification token or code. If successful, you’ll receive confirmation that your site ownership has been verified.
It is always better to use Multiple Verification Methods which will help you to enhance the security of your website and a smooth flow of your data, if any of the verification fails due to any unforeseen issues like theme modification or any changes in your website code
How to Verify Child Properties
When you verify ownership of a parent property, any child properties you add will be automatically verified using the same method. This streamlines the verification process for subdomains or specific paths within your website. Which means if you verify examples.com using GSC, the subdomains like blog.example.com will be automatically verified and start recording the data in your verified property
Once you are verified, the Verification remains valid as long as the Search Console can confirm the presence and validity of your verification token using any of the methods explained above
By implementing site ownership verification in Google Search Console, you can unlock a large set of actionable insights to optimise your website’s performance and improve the visibility in search results