Verify your domain on the Google Search Console

What Google Search Console gives you

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that shows you how your site is doing in Google search: which searches you appear in, how many people clicked through to you, and whether Google has found and indexed your pages. It is completely optional — your OfferingTree site is found by Google without it — but it is the only place you can actually see that information. To use it, Google first asks you to prove the site is yours. That is what this article walks through.

Step 1: Choose your property type

When you add a site in Search Console, Google asks you to pick one of two “property” types. They are not the same thing, and only one of them is something you can finish inside OfferingTree.

• URL prefix — recommended. This covers one web address and everything under it. You can verify it in a few minutes with a small tag that you paste into OfferingTree. This is the one to choose.
• Domain. This covers your domain across every subdomain and both http and https. It can only be verified by adding a DNS TXT record at your domain registrar (the company you bought your domain from, such as GoDaddy or Namecheap). OfferingTree cannot add that record for you — DNS lives with your registrar, not with us. If you are comfortable editing your DNS records you are welcome to use this method; otherwise choose URL prefix.

For the URL prefix, enter your site's primary web address — the one people actually see in the browser bar:

• If you use a custom domain, use the https://www. version, for example https://www.yourstudio.com/. That matches the address every page of your site declares as its official one, so Search Console and your site agree.
• If you are on an OfferingTree address, use it exactly as it is — for example https://yourname.offeringtree.com/. This works just as well; you do not need a custom domain to use Search Console.

Step 2: Verify with the HTML tag

1. In Google Search Console, add your property as URL prefix and enter your site address.
2. Google shows you a list of verification methods. Open HTML tag and copy the line it gives you. It looks like <meta name="google-site-verification" content="a-long-string-of-characters" />. Leave that browser tab open.
3. In another tab, open your OfferingTree dashboard and go to Website → SEO in the left menu.
4. Paste what you copied into the Search Console verification field. You can paste the whole tag — we pull the token out of it for you. If you already have just the token on its own, or the google-site-verification=... string from Google's DNS instructions, those work too. If what you paste isn't a verification token, you will see a message under the field.
5. Click Save.
6. Go back to the Google Search Console tab and click Verify.

Google should confirm ownership right away. If it doesn't, give it a minute and click Verify again — and double-check that the address you entered in Google is the same one your site actually uses (the www version for custom domains).

Leave the value in place after verifying. Google re-checks it from time to time, and clearing the field can cause you to lose access to the property.

Step 3: What to do once you're verified

Submitting your sitemap is optional. Your site's robots.txt already tells search engines where your sitemap is, so Google finds it on its own. If you'd like the extra report anyway, open Sitemaps in Search Console and submit sitemap.xml.gz. That gives you Google's submitted-versus-indexed count, which some people find reassuring — it is not a requirement. You can copy your exact sitemap address from Website → SEO under Crawl files.

The two reports worth knowing:

• Performance — the searches people used, how often you appeared, and how many clicked. This is where you find out which words are actually bringing people to you.
• Pages — which of your pages Google has indexed and which it hasn't, with a reason for each. Worth a look if a particular page never seems to show up.

Search Console starts collecting data from the day you verify, so expect a few days before there is anything meaningful to look at. It does not backfill history, and it won't be empty because something is wrong.

Already set this up the old way?

Before the SEO page existed, the way to do this was Site Integrations → Add code to HEAD, pasting the tag in as a custom integration. That still works and is still verifying your site — there is no need to change anything.

Just don't set it up both ways. If you add a new tag on Website → SEO, remove the old “Search Console Verification” integration from Site Integrations first, so there is only one verification tag on your site.

Have questions? Click on "help" within your OfferingTree dashboard to send us a help message.