Setting up Google Search Console: How to Get More SEO Data from Google

1. What data does Google provide in the Search Console?
2. Simple yet difficult: Setting up the Google Search Console correctly
3. How can ownership be confirmed in the Search Console?
4. Receiving more data in the Google Search Console: Bypassing the data limits
5. And how is it with Google Search Console and GDPR?
6. Important points to remember for setting up the Google Search Console summarized

The unpaid Google search is a central component of many businesses' online marketing strategy. The more relevant traffic is generated through organic search results, the better for marketing profitability. However, the competition for the top spots is tough and updates to the ranking algorithm often cause visitor flows to shift.

Around the Search Engine Optimization an ecosystem of agencies, freelancers, and tools have emerged to assist businesses in improving their Google ranking. SEO tools are now available in large numbers and most of the solutions are paid. A comprehensive tool stack can quickly cost several hundred euros per month! One of the best and most popular SEO tools comes from Google itself and is free: the Google Search Console. Within our SEO category, the Search Console consistently ranks at the top.

Setting up the Google Search Console (short: GSC) involves a few stumbling points. This was reason enough for us to ask Google Search Console expert Stephan Czysch for some top tips and tricks. In this guest article, he explains what you should keep in mind.

What data does Google provide in the Search Console?

To be able to display relevant pages in search results, Google needs to capture the web as comprehensively as possible. This automated process is called crawling and Google collects a lot of data during crawling. Crawling is the necessary first step before the indexing of a page. Indexing refers to the inclusion of a page in the so-called Google index. Only pages included in the Google index can show up in search results.

The range of crawling data extends from non-functional web addresses ("404 errors") to slow-loading pages ("Page Speed" or also "Core Web Vitals") to structured data marking and linking of individual addresses on the web ("Link building"). Google wants to share this data, at least in part, with those responsible for a website. This is done via the Google Search Console.

The tool collection known until May 2015 as "Google Webmaster Tools" offers performance data besides crawling data. Within the Google Search Console, you can analyze how your own web content is found in Google search and potentially Google Discover and Google News.

The performance data are extremely relevant for evaluating and optimizing your own visibility since in contrast to web analytics tools, search queries can still be analyzed in the Google Search Console. You can therefore see which search queries users have been shown pages of your web presence - and ideally, of course, visits and conversions have resulted.

Simple yet difficult: Setting up the Google Search Console correctly

The Google Search Console is a very powerful tool that can completely remove your own online presence from Google Search at your request. To prevent such and similar functions from being maliciously used by a competitor, ownership of a website must be confirmed using a confirmation key. Only after successful confirmation of a website the data can be viewed and the Search Console can be used. To obtain the confirmation key, a Google account is needed. This account can of course be an account already used for other Google services.

But how is a website confirmed in the Google Search Console? To do this, the tool must be called up at https://search.google.com/search-console. If the Google account in use does not yet have a confirmed page, the confirmation mask appears directly.

If no website has been set up in the Search Console so far, this mask will be displayed.

If websites have already been confirmed, then a further confirmation can be started via the dropdown field in the top left corner, followed by a click on "Add Property".

To confirm additional websites in the Search Console, "Add Property" must be selected from the drop-down

But wait, what does Google mean by "First choose a property type"? What is a "property type"?

Property can be translated in this context as "possession". In the Google Search Console websites can be confirmed in two ways, namely as so-called

• Domain-Property, thus you confirm that you own an entire domain, e.g. omr.com, and alternatively as
• URL Prefix-Property, by which you identify yourself as the owner of a specific URL pathway, such as https://omr.com/.

URL Prefix Properties have been the long-used standard, while Domain Properties are still relatively new.

Still: They sound quite technical, don't they? And they are. To shed more light on this, it is necessary to understand how Google collects data for provision in the Google Search Console: This is done based on the so-called hostname, in the Search Console called "URL prefix property".

The hostname is the combination of:

• Protocol, which in most cases is https://,
• the optional subdomain, which most often is www.,
• the domain name.

An example: The OMR Training Courses are offered under the hostname https://education.omr.com.

For Google, however, https://education.omr.com and http://education.omr.com (http instead of https) are different. And technically it is possible that completely different content is available under these addresses. In general, Google wants to ensure that the data for a website can only be viewed by the respective owner in the Search Console.

Let's rewind a few years, then the use of https was still the exception. If the website was switched to https, then the following happened in the Google Search Console: Since no addresses could be called up successfully under http anymore (these ideally redirect to https), the data in the Google Search Console went down until they eventually reached 0. To be able to see the data for https, the website had to be confirmed again. Because as far as Google is concerned, the webmaster has only registered in the Search Console that the content under http is within his sphere of influence.

Due to a change such as the switch from http to https, there was a break in the Google Search Console data. Therefore, Google has enabled the new option of confirming the entire domain as a Domain Property. With this, you are stating that you own the entire domain - accordingly, you can see the data of all subdomains (www., magazine. and whatever else you use) and protocols (mainly http and https).

Let's take another quick look at the Google article on adding a website property: Here it becomes clear which data is included within the Search Console depending on the confirmation method.

The Google help illustrates the differences between URL prefix and domain property

If you're working for a very large website, then it's likely that resources like images or JavaScript files reside on a separate domain (more on the topic of "Content Delivery Networks, short CDN"). Consequently, the data of these addresses cannot be found in the Search Console of your actual domain.So remember to set up all domains in the Google Search Console where resources of your website reside. Because only then will you have a comprehensive overview.

What should you remember about the two confirmation methods? Confirming a website as a Domain Property is the surest way to get a comprehensive overview of a website. Because with the URL Prefix Properties, you only identify yourself as a representative of the addresses that are below the specified path. If addresses are removed from this path, then these data are no longer available in the corresponding property.

How can ownership be confirmed in the Search Console?

Access to a website's Google Search Console data is only granted if the confirmation key associated with the Google Account is found on the website. To register this key, there are different confirmation methods.How exactly you confirm your website ownership, Google explains in detail.

In Google's help, the different confirmation methods are described in detail

While various confirmation possibilities are possible for URL Prefix Properties, there is only one variant for confirming the entire domain. For this, the confirmation key must be deposited in the so-called DNS entries. DNS stands for Domain Name System and is, simply put, the phone book of the internet. Here, for example, it's registered under which IP address the web server of the website can be found.

Which confirmation method should be chosen? It's best to deposit the confirmation key in the DNS entries. Because with that, it's clear that all addresses of the domain (e.g. omr.com) belong to the key holder. Additionally, this allows for confirmation of any URL variants as a URL Prefix Property, without having to deposit the key again within the respective address structure.

However: The simple and 98 % of the time absolutely sufficient confirmation method is to deposit the confirmation key directly in the source code of the homepage or by uploading the HTML confirmation file to the main directory of the website. Because let's be honest: Many websites only run on exactly one protocol (remember, that's e.g. https) and one subdomain (which usually is www). Accordingly, there are no other data paths.

Let's go through the confirmation process using an example: I want to identify myself as the owner of all addresses below https://omr.com and accordingly select "URL Prefix Property".

To confirm https://omr.com/ as a URL prefix, you start the setup process of the Search Console

After clicking on "Next" I have to choose the desired confirmation method, e.g. via an HTML tag. Here I receive my personal confirmation key, which I then need to publish on the website.

For the confirmation method, I choose the HTML tag in this case - I need to include this in the homepage

After I have integrated the code into the page, I click on Confirm. Google now checks whether this code can really be found on the page. If this is successful, I have access to the Google Search Console data from https://omr.com/.

Admittedly, setting up the Google Search Console is a rather technical topic. If you have experts at hand, let them take care of this task. All you have to do is: Go to the Google Search Console, select the desired property type and copy your code and provide it to your colleagues.

It is perfectly sufficient if a website is confirmed by one Google account in the Search Console. Because confirmed website owners can add access to other Google accounts.

The Google Search Console offers three access permissions:

• Website owner
• ⁠Unrestricted user
• Restricted user

The differences between the permissions, are shown by the Google help.

Thanks to user management and roles, more people can get access to the GSC without needing reconfirmation

For a collaboration with SEO experts external to the company, the "unrestricted user" is the appropriate choice. A tip at this point: Check which people have access to the Google Search Console. Unfortunately, it happens very often that significantly more people have access to the Search Console than necessary. To do this, go to "Settings" and click on "Users and Permissions".

Ideally, you should not use a person-bound Google account for verification, because if the person leaves the company, the account will be deactivated - and as a result the website will be unconfirmed. So rather use an account like marketing@companyname.com instead of max.mustermann@companyname.com. This generally applies to all Google products.

By the way, for many Content Management Systems there are easy ways in SEO extensions to deposit the confirmation key for the Search Console. For example, the plugin Yoast for WordPress offers under "General" in the "Webmaster Tools" tab the possibility to deposit the confirmation key for the Search Console. The plugin then automatically ensures that Google can find the confirmation key. Therefore, manual publication of the key is not necessary.

Receiving more data in the Google Search Console: Bypassing the data limits

The Google Search Console is a wonderful tool, but there's one downside: the data limits. The reports typically only display a maximum of 1000 rows. This means, for example, that only 1000 non-accessible pages ("404 errors" in the "Coverage - Not found (404)" report) can be seen, even though significantly more addresses are not accessible anymore.

For this reason, it is beneficial to confirm important address structures as separate URL Prefix Properties in the Google Search Console. For my website, this looks something like this:

Tip: Establish important subdirectories of your website in the Search Console as additional Properties to receive more data

Through creating the two directories, I receive more data in total. If your address structure includes additional subdirectories, these can also be set up and subsequently evaluated in the Google Search Console.

The book summary service Blinkist, for example, structures the individual books within https://www.blinkist.com/de/books/ - although this page is currently not accessible, it can be confirmed in the Search Console. For confirming subdirectories, by the way, it's not necessary to keep depositing the confirmation key on the page. As long as the confirmation code has already been deposited under https://www.blinkist.com/ (or the /de/ subdirectory), this also applies to the subdirectories underneath.

And how is it with Google Search Console and GDPR?

You're now thinking, all well and good, but GDPR makes the use of Google Search Consoleimpossible! That's not the case! The Google Search Console does not collect data about individual people or IP addresses of devices, therefore, the Google Search Console can be used without problems. On my website, you'll find more information on Google Search Console and data privacy.

Important points to remember for setting up the Google Search Console summarized

The Google Search Console is set up for your websites? Perfect, then you're one step closer to SEO success! Now it's time to work with the data and continuously improve the website. I regularly explain how this is done in Search Console seminars.

In short, the most important things about setting up the free tool:

• Only after the integration of the personal confirmation key, will the data and features of the Search Console be available
• Google collects data based on the respective address structure. If you have confirmed yourself as the owner of https://omr.com/ then you initially don't see any data from https://education.omr.com/. Because that is a separate address structure
• If, for example, the images of your website are stored on a separate hostname, e.g. omrimages.de, then this domain must be confirmed additionally
• Through confirming an entire domain as Domain Property, you're telling Google the domain belongs to you
• There are different confirmation methods which have different complexities when it comes to setup
• It's a good idea to confirm important directories as separate URL Prefix Properties in the Google Search Console to bypass the Google Search Console's data limits
• The confirmed owner has the opportunity to invite further Google accounts with different Levels of access