Verify Domain Ownership in Search Console

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When managing a website, it is very common for many doubts to appear about the positioning that we have in the different search engines, but taking into account the percentage of use of Google, for the majority our main concern is focused on this search engine.

Will Google index my website? Will all my pages appear in Google? And if I appear, how do the users who enter my website look for me?

In order to answer these questions and some others, Google offers a free service, Google Search Consoleand the first step you have to take to use it will be Check Search Console in WordPress.

What is Search Console?

As I have already introduced, it is a free service offered by Goolge focused on any user who manages a website, whether it is a small business or a large online store, for web positioning professionals (SEO) or those who are dedicated to digital marketing, It is also a good tool for web developers themselves.

This tool offers us a lot of information about how our website appears in Google search results, reports problems related to how we appear in searches and gives us clues on how to solve them.

It is a very complete and very useful tool that would make me write several posts about its use, but here is a summary of its features:

– Know if Google has our website indexed and therefore we appear in the search engine.

– Notifies us of problems related to indexing and proposes solutions to improve.

– We can see the terms that users use in the search engine to find our website and the times they click when we appear.

– See the websites that have links pointing to your website.

– And other functions related to detecting usability problems or problems with the mobile version.

In order to use this tool, the first thing we have to do is register a property (a web domain, that of our website), that is, verify your WordPress in Search Console.

How to check Search Console

When verifying a domain ownership, what we are doing is nothing more than telling Google that we are the owners or at least that we have permission to see all the information that it provides us on the web.

Once you have accessed Search Console and started the wizard to add a property, the first thing to do is tell it the url of your website.

The tool provides us with different methods to verify that we are the owners or that we have permission to manage the website.

We can see that they offer us the following methods:

– HTML file.

We must download an HTML file from the verification wizard itself and we must upload it to the “public_html” folder of the hosting, as is the case with hosting, or the subfolder where you have your website within it. Depending on the hosting management panel, this folder can be changed to “http_docs”.

This method implies that you must know how to upload files to the hosting either through FTP programs such as Filezilla or through the file manager of your hosting.

– HTML tag.

In this case you must introduce a meta tag in the head of all the pages of your WordPress. If you do not have programming knowledge this is not your method.

And taking into account how simple the others are, I do not recommend this method for a WordPress website.

–Google Analytics.

This verification method is very simple. You just have to hit the verify button. The only condition is that you must have access to Analytics. And this is not always possible since Analytics may be associated with a different Google account than the one you are going to use to register Search Console.

Whether you use this method or another, don’t forget to link Google Analytics with Search Console to be able to have all the data offered by both platforms.

–Google Tag Manager

The same thing happens with Google Analytics. You must , and have account permissions.

– Domain name provider.

In this case, what we are going to do is associate a domain DNS record to Google through our hosting, this action is carried out from our CPanel in the hosting or from the panel that your hosting offers you.

If you use CloudFlare you can also use this method and you must do it from its panel.

And of all the options, even if it is the one that may sound the least simple to you, it actually is.

You do not need to know programming or install any FTP connection program to the server. From the CPanel or Cloudfare you can do it without problems.

What we are going to create is a TXT type DNS record that provides text information to sources outside of your domain and that can be used for various purposes. The registry value can correspond to a text readable by a machine or by a person.

Google uses TXT records to verify domain ownership and implement email security measures such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

Check Search Console in CPanel

To verify a website in Search Console from CPanel through the DNS record, we are going to create the TXT record with the information that Search Console has provided us when registering our domain.

To do this, the first thing is to access our CPanel, we can do it from our hosting user area or through the url that they provide us when purchasing the hosting.

Once in the panel we are going to look for the “Domains” section and access it in “Zone Editor”.

We select the domain that we want to validate by clicking on “Manage”.

At this point is when we can see all the records already created in the hosting.

Through the “Add record” button we select the TXT type and introduce the values:

– Name: domain that we want to verify in Search Console.

– TTL (Time to Live): We recommend 14400 but Google usually recommends 3600 (Lifetime).

– Guy:TXT

– TXT data: The validation record provided by Google and starting with google-site-verification=.

Once the record is created we can return to Search Console and click on the verify button.

IMPORTANT: DNS record changes are usually almost instantaneous, although Google may take a few hours to verify.

Check Search Console if you have CloudFare

CloudFlare is a system that replicates your website in the cloud, thus putting a copy of the website between the users of the website and your server. With this, it improves the loading speed of the web and protects it.

If you use this system you can verify your website in Search Console as well as from CPanel with the “Domain name provider” method.

A TXT record must be created through the CloudFlare panel.

To do this you must access the panel and once there click on the DNS icon.

All records already created for the domain will appear. From the “Add record” button you can add a new one.

Using the commented data for CPanel you can create the new record.

Conclusions

Although validation through domain names is not the most common, there may be circumstances that lead you to need this method.

If you do not know how to upload files to the server or insert meta tags on all pages, or you do not have access or do not have Tag Manager connected, creating a TXT record with the information provided by Google Search Console will be the verification method that you have to use .

And as you have been able to verify, it is much simpler than it seems a priori.

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Co-founder of Covalenciawebs where I am responsible for web positioning and Google Ads. I also teach SEO, SEM and Web Analytics courses to be applied in projects carried out in WordPress and Woocommerce.