How to use Google Search Console for your website

Google Search Console shows how Google discovers, crawls, indexes, and reports on a website in Search. For a webmaster, it is the quickest place to confirm whether important URLs are reachable, whether search demand is turning into impressions and clicks, and whether Google is seeing the preferred version of each page.

The first decision is the property type. A Domain property covers every subdomain and protocol for a domain and uses DNS verification, while a URL-prefix property tracks only the exact protocol, host, and optional path that were added.

The most useful operating pattern is to verify ownership, submit the live sitemap, inspect important URLs, and then watch the Search results and Page indexing reports for changes. Search Console data is delayed rather than real time, and Request indexing is only a crawl request, so report checks should stay tied to the site's canonical public URLs.

1. Open Google Search Console, use the property selector, and add the site as either a Domain property or a URL-prefix property.

   Domain: example.com
   URL-prefix: https://www.example.com/

   Domain property covers all subdomains and protocols for the domain, while URL-prefix property covers only the exact address scope that was entered, and the Domain property value should be the bare domain without http, https, or www.

2. Complete ownership verification with the method allowed for that property type.

   google-site-verification=...

   Domain property requires DNS verification, while URL-prefix property can use HTML file, HTML tag, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, or DNS when those methods are available.

   Tag-based methods are checked on the non-logged-in destination page for the property URL, and HTML file verification fails if the file is missing from the property root or redirects to another domain.

3. Open Sitemaps and submit the live sitemap URL for the same property.

   https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

   Pages can be discovered without a submitted sitemap, but submitting one through Search Console adds fetch and parsing status for ongoing monitoring, and sitemap submission requires owner permission on the property.

   If the site runs on a platform such as Wix or Squarespace, submit the platform-managed sitemap instead of publishing a second competing file.

4. Paste the homepage or another important canonical URL into URL inspection and review the indexed result before using Test live URL when the report does not match the current page.

   https://www.example.com/important-page/

   The indexed result shows Google's stored state for the URL, while the live test checks current crawl access and rendered resources, and Request indexing requires owner or full-user access.

   Use Request indexing for one page after a meaningful fix or publish event, but use the sitemap for broad discovery instead of requesting many URLs one by one.

5. Open Search results, switch on Clicks, Impressions, CTR, and Average position, and then filter by Queries, Pages, Countries, or Devices to isolate traffic changes.

   The default view shows the last three months, and the newest data points can be preliminary in the 24-hour view.

6. Open Page indexing, inspect the reasons under Not indexed for important canonical pages, and send a representative URL to URL inspection for the exact crawl, canonical, and indexability details.

   Not every non-indexed URL is a problem, so focus on pages that should rank and ignore intentional duplicates, redirects, login-only paths, and other non-canonical URLs.

7. Open Manual actions and Security issues when important pages disappear, visibility drops sharply after a site change, or Google shows warnings in the property.

   These reports surface site-level problems that the sitemap and URL inspection workflows do not explain on their own.

8. Confirm the operating loop by checking that the property is verified, the sitemap is processing or has reached Success, an inspected URL is crawlable or already on Google, and the Search results report has started to collect data.

   Search Console starts collecting property data as soon as a property is added to an account, even before verification, but it can still take a few days before reports fill in.