You might have worked your fingers to the bone building your business website.
Maybe you added high-end products to attract your target audience. You might have also included quality blog content to engage your visitors. The site is live, the theme looks great, and that exit-intent popup with a discount offer is the cherry on top.
But are you actually tracking your masterpiece? Do you know how your website is performing?
If you are not, all that hard work could be going to waste.
That is where Google Search Console comes in. It is a free and powerful tool that helps you monitor your website’s performance and make sure your efforts do not go unnoticed.
What is Google Search Console?
As the name suggests, Google Search Console (GSC) is a free web service from Google that helps you keep an eye on your website’s performance.
It gives you insight into how your site is appearing in search results and helps you maintain it by identifying and fixing potential issues.
As a business owner, you have probably already set up a website to keep up with the digital age. But simply having an online presence does not guarantee success.
Data shows that a large percentage of small businesses now have a website, and Google processes tens of thousands of searches every second. Realistically, your site is not going to appear in every search.
To understand where you stand, you need visibility into how your site is performing and how it ranks in search results.
This is exactly what Google Search Console is designed to do. It provides valuable insights, helps you fix crawl and indexing issues, highlights security concerns, and much more. In short, it gives you the tools to build and maintain a strong digital footprint.
So simply being one of many businesses with a website is not enough. Using Google Search Console helps ensure your SEO efforts are tracked, maintained, and improved where needed.
What is Google Search Console used for?
Whether you manage your own website or handle SEO for clients, Google Search Console is still one of the most important tools in your stack.
Today, you can use it to:
- Monitor indexing and crawling health, including Core Web Vitals and page experience signals
- Diagnose mobile usability issues and performance problems that impact rankings
- See which sites and pages are linking to you, and evaluate backlink quality
- Review manual actions, security issues, and spam penalties
- Validate structured data, rich results, and schema enhancements
- Track impressions, clicks, and average positions across Search, Discover, and Video results
- Identify exactly which queries are driving traffic and how user behaviour is changing over time
- Monitor indexing of new pages and get alerted to coverage issues
- Measure performance across Google surfaces, not just traditional search
In short, GSC has become your command centre for understanding how Google actually sees your site in 2026, and what you need to improve to grow visibility, clicks, and revenue.
Setting up Google Search Console
To begin with, you need to create an account in Google Search Console.
Login to GSC
If you already have a Gmail or Google account, the search engine will automatically log you in.However, if you have multiple people managing your business, you may want to give them access to your GSC data.In that case, you'd need to add your business members as users/owners of your website. You also have the option to set varying permissions depending on your team member's skill level and requirements.
Choose property type
After logging in, you’ll have to select a property type. Here, you have the option to choose from the following:
Domain
The Domain property in Google Search Console is now the default and recommended setup.
It automatically includes all versions of your site, covering:
- HTTP and HTTPS
- www and non-www
- All subdomains
- All URL paths
This matters more than ever in 2026 because Google no longer treats your site as “one URL”. It evaluates your entire domain ecosystem, including subdomains, staging paths, blog folders, and media/CDN variants.
Why this is critical
miscdigitalmarketing.com and www.miscdigitalmarketing.com might look identical, but to Google they are technically different hosts.
If your property is not set up as a Domain property, Google can split:
- Authority
- Indexing signals
- Crawl budgets
- Performance data
- Discover and AI Overview eligibility
across multiple versions of the same site.
That fragmentation directly weakens rankings.
What actually happens
When you type:
miscdigitalmarketing.com
and it redirects to:
www.miscdigitalmarketing.com
your server is telling Google which version is preferred.
But Search Console must also be configured at the domain level so Google consolidates all performance, crawling, indexing, Discover, and AI Overview visibility into a single authoritative profile.
The bottom line
If you are not using a Domain property in 2026, you are:
- Losing data accuracy
- Diluting SEO authority
- Weakening your eligibility for Discover and AI-generated results
- Making debugging crawl and indexing problems harder
Domain properties are no longer “best practice”.
They are mandatory.
URL Prefix
URL Prefix properties only include URLs that match a specific protocol and address.
So if you add:
https://www.miscdigitalmarketing.com
Google Search Console will not include:
http://miscdigitalmarketing.com
https://miscdigitalmarketing.com
http://www.miscdigitalmarketing.com
Each version is treated as a separate property.
How URL Prefix verification works
When using a URL Prefix property, you can verify ownership using:
- An HTML tag placed on a specific page
- An uploaded HTML verification file
- Google Tag Manager
- Google Analytics tracking code
When URL Prefix properties still make sense
Even in 2026, URL Prefix properties can still be useful when you want isolated data views, such as:
- Monitoring a specific subdomain or folder
- Tracking a separate mobile site
- Auditing staging, development, or regional site versions
- Testing migrations, redesigns, or experiments without affecting your main domain data
Think of Domain properties as your master control centre, and URL Prefix properties as your microscopes for deep, targeted analysis.
Verify your property
After choosing your property type, you must verify that you own the website. Google offers several verification methods, but these are the four easiest and most common.
Verify using Google Analytics
If you are already tracking your site with Google Analytics, this is usually the fastest option.
- Make sure your Google Analytics tracking code is installed in the
<head>section of your website - Log in to Google Search Console
- Select your property
- Click Settings and then Ownership verification
- Choose Google Analytics as your verification method
- Click Verify
If your tracking code is active and placed correctly, verification is instant.
Verify by uploading an HTML file
This method involves uploading a verification file to your website.
- In Search Console, select your property
- Go to Settings > Ownership verification
- Choose HTML file upload
- Download the provided file
- Upload it to the root directory of your website
- Return to Search Console and click Verify
Do not rename or edit the file, or verification will fail.
Verify using an HTML tag
If you are comfortable editing your site’s code, this is another quick option.
- In Search Console, select your property
- Go to Settings > Ownership verification
- Choose HTML tag
- Copy the verification tag provided
- Paste it into the
<head>section of your homepage - Save and publish your changes
- Return to Search Console and click Verify
Verify via your domain provider
This is the best option for Domain properties and larger websites.
- Select your property in Search Console
- Go to Settings > Ownership verification
- Choose Domain name provider
- Select your domain registrar
- Follow the instructions to add the DNS record provided
- Once the DNS change propagates, click Verify
This method confirms ownership of your entire domain, including all subdomains.
Link Google Analytics to Search Console
Once verified, link Search Console to Google Analytics so your data is available in both platforms.
- In Search Console, select your property
- Go to Settings
- Click Associations
- Choose Google Analytics
- Select your Analytics property and save
Mission accomplished.
You are now ready to use Google Search Console to unlock valuable insights and optimise your site faster than you can say “Google Search Console”.
Next up, let’s walk through the key features and how to use them to grow your visibility.
Google Search Console Features (2026)
Once your site is set up, Search Console becomes your visibility command centre. This is where you see how Google’s modern ranking systems, AI results, Discover feeds and rich results actually treat your site.
These are the reports that matter most in 2026.
Performance
The Performance report now shows visibility across:
- Google Search
- Discover
- Google News
- Video search
- AI Overview and generative results
You can analyse up to 16 months of historical data to identify growth, drops, and AI visibility shifts.
Clicks
Clicks show how many users actually entered your site from Google.
Low clicks with high impressions usually indicate:
- Weak titles and descriptions
- Poor AI Overview inclusion
- Low perceived topical authority
This is now one of the most important revenue levers in SEO.
Impressions
Impressions show how often your pages appear across all Google surfaces, including AI-generated results.
This report also reveals:
- Which queries trigger your pages
- Which pages are shown
- Whether your topical clusters are correctly mapped
This is your visibility heatmap.
Average position
Average position remains useful, but modern SEO is more about visibility share than a single ranking number.
Still, it is excellent for trend tracking and detecting algorithm impact.
CTR
CTR is now critical for AI inclusion and Discover eligibility.
Strong CTR feeds Google behavioural quality systems that influence:
- Discover reach
- AI Overview citations
- Rich result inclusion
Indexing
Indexing reports now show:
- Which pages are indexed
- Which are excluded
- Rendering issues
- Canonical selection
- Crawl budget distribution
This is where most hidden SEO traffic loss occurs.
URL Inspection
This tool shows:
- Whether your page is eligible for AI Overviews
- Rendered HTML as Google sees it
- Indexing decisions
- Rich result and schema eligibility
You can request recrawls after updates.
Enhancements
Enhancements now heavily influence Discover, AI and Top Stories eligibility.
They include:
- Core Web Vitals
- Page experience signals
- Structured data and schema coverage
- Rich result eligibility
These reports now directly affect how often your site is surfaced by Google’s AI systems.
Manual actions & security
This section monitors:
- Spam penalties
- AI spam classifications
- Hacked content
- Cloaking
- Misleading schema usage
Security issues now also affect Discover and AI inclusion eligibility.
Bottom line
Search Console in 2026 is no longer just an SEO tool.
It is the dashboard that determines whether your site is visible, trusted, and surfaced by Google’s AI systems or silently filtered out.
Master it and you control your growth.
So, now what?
The best things are hardly free, not even the air in your packet of chips - you paid for the whole thing!
The best part is that Google Search Console is completely free.
Not using it means missing out on critical performance insights that show how your site is really performing in search and where your biggest growth opportunities are.
If you are looking for that extra edge, whether it is site optimisation or getting full control over your Search Console data, we have got you covered.
Get a free proposal today and see how we can help transform your site’s visibility and performance.
