Google Search Console and its Verification Methods

 Google Search Console

Google search console is a web service by Google which allows webmasters to check indexing status and optimize visibility of their websites. Until may 2015, The service called Google webmasters tool. In January 2018, Google introduced a new version of the  search console, with changes to the user interface.

Verification of your website in the Google search console is a very important thing. Once you verified in Google search console, then you owned the google private search data. If your website is not verified in google search console, then googlebot's will never crawl your website and there will not be any search results.

First, we copy the URL and go to the Search console. Google id used to login to the search console must be same as the Gmail id. Then the automatic verification will complete. We can see two options in search console domain and URL prefix. Paste the URL in the URL prefix. Press continue button. Click property to verify. Select URL inspection option and paste the URL. Click enter button. If it show that URL unavailable, then click test live and enter. Then click request indexing. Then the page will be crawled.

If you are verifying a website that is not in your custody or not linked with your Gmail account, then the search console has 5 ownership verication methods.

HTML File Verification.

The most recommended method by google is HTML file verification method. When we paste the URL in the URL inspection search console provide an HTML document file to download. Once you download the file, then upload it in public HTML folder in the C panel (control panel) of your website. Click the verify button, verification is done. 

Meta tag method

Search console will provide a html meta tag which must be copied. Then go to settings of the website and select theme and paste the meta tag in the head section of the HTML, before the first body section. Then click verify button.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics  platform that tracks and reports the web traffic on your website. Which will give users details, users spending time, location,..etc. By using analytics tracking code verification can be done.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag is shown as a container snippet. The tag manager  id is used to verify the ownership. Tag managers are Javascript codes that can be pasted at head and body section. It can include all the changes and modifications even without knowing the coding details.

Domain Name Provider

By purchasing domains from domain name providers like godaddy.com copy the text provided by the search console and paste it to the DNS data entry option. Through this process the verification can be done.