How to Use Google Search Console (Webmaster Tools)

'Google Search Console' was known as 'Google Webmaster Tool'. But Web-Tech Giant Google has changed it into Search Console. Google Search Console is the most popular web search consoling website. Indexing, Crawling, Sitemap submitting, Search traffic analyzing, Search appearance, Security issues checking are the main purposes to use it.

Before discussing in details, we need to know how to create an account for Google Search Console. It is similar to create an account with Gmail for any product of Google.

1. Go to Search Console and sign in with your Gmail and password.

2. After signing you will look an option to add the property as below.

Put your web address (Web Property) and click on "ADD A PROPERTY".

3. If you add the custom domain (Example: www.compromath.com), you have to verify your property. It is not required for Blogspot domain.

To verify property click on your property (web address) and click Setting option like the following figure.

4. There are the different method to verify your property in Google Search Console. You will be shown in the following image.

For Blogger user, use 'HTML tag' option to verify. See how to verify site ownership at Google Search Console by using meta tag.

For Wordpress user, you can use first three option.  

5. After verification, you are ready to use Google Search Console.

Dashboard Introduction

The dashboard of Google Search Console is like as below.

Messages: Important message about your property is sent to Google Search Console. You should check it and solve according to its instruction.

Search Appearances: Under search appearances option you will see the following option.

• Structured Data: You can check the status of structured data on your website according to schema.org for better search engine ranking.
• Rich Cards: If your website is about commercial or news related you should to provide update data to Google. To do that you have to use rich cards.
• Data Highlighter: Similarly rich cards but slide different that if you want to show event, score in Google Search Engine, you need to use data highlighter.
• HTML Improvements: For better HTML improvements of your website.
• Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP): To make your website more mobile friendly you can use AMP an open-source to provide web pages fast loading and make good looking in mobile devices.

Search Traffic: Under search traffic option you will see the following option.

• Search Analytics: You can analyze the search queries by visitors.
• Links to Your Site: You can check your backlink from here.
• Internal Links: Your internal links are shown here.
• Manual Actions:
• International Targeting: To target your audiences base on language and region this option will help you.
• Mobile Usability: If mobile usability is shown any error, you can check from here. 

Google Index: Under Google Index option you will see the following option.

• Index Status: You can check what and how much posts have been indexed by Google Search Engine in a given period.
• Blocked Resources: If something on your website is blocked by Googlebot then this option will show you. 
• Remove URLs: The URLs are removed by you are shown here.

Crawl: Under Crawl option, you will see the following option. Crawl means the attempt to find your post, URL, text, images etc to show on the search engine.

• Crawl Errors: If any problem occurred to crawl then you will see this error from here.
• Crawl Stats: Statistics of crawling by Googlebot are shown here.
• Fetch as Google: If you want to index and crawl emergency you can use this option. To do you have to put URL (without domain) and command to Fetch.
• robots.txt Tester: It is the most important section of your website console. If you have already added robots.txt file to your website then you will see like below after clicking www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt

If any errors then configure your robots.txt file according to below. For Blogger, go to Blogger Dashboard→Search Preferences→Crawlers and indexing→Custom robots.txt→Edit

• Sitemaps: It is the another most important option for your website. You can add or test sitemaps here. Adding sitemaps increases the probability of indexing and crawling.

You can add sitemap by commanding 'ADD/TEST SITEMAP' and then do according to the figure.

But before adding you have to create a sitemap.XML file. You can do it from here. Then complete 'Test/Submit' option.

• URL Parameters: To configure URL parameters.

Security Issues: If any security issues (hacking, malware etc) about your website be found then it will notify you.
Other Resources: You can use different Google Web tools for your website.

Recommended: Improve your search engine ranking.
Make your Blogger more SEO Friendly. 

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