Add a website property to Search Console

A property is Search Console's term for a discrete thing that you can examine or manage in Search Console. A website property represents a website: that is, all pages that share the common domain or URL prefix that you specify. You can manage multiple properties, and choose which one to see or manage using the property selector in Search Console.

Here is how to add a website property to your Search Console account. Note that you must be able to prove that you own the site (or appropriate section of that site) in order to add it to your Search Console account. You can create a property that includes an entire domain (example.com) or a property that is limited to a single branch (example.com/clothing/).

If you are unable to prove ownership, you can ask another property owner to grant you access to the property.

You can have up to 1,000 properties in your Search Console account.

Types of website properties

Search Console supports the following website property types:

  URL-prefix property Domain property
Description

Includes only URLs with the specified prefix, including the protocol (http/https).

If you want your property to match any protocol or subdomain (http/https/www./m. and so on), then consider creating a Domain property instead. See more details.

A domain-level property that Includes all subdomains (m, www, and so on) and multiple protocols (http, https, ftp).

If you need to limit your data by URL path segments (example.com/es/, example.com/en/, and so on) or by protocol (http/https), then create a URL-prefix property instead. See more details.

Verification Many possible methods DNS record verification only
Examples

Property http://example.com/

http://example.com/dresses/1234
🅧
https://example.com/dresses/1234 - https does not match
🅧 http://www.example.com/dresses/1234 - www. does not match

Property example.com

http://example.com/dresses/1234
https://example.com/dresses/1234
http://www.example.com/dresses/1234
http://support.m.example.com/dresses/1234

Add a new property

If someone else has granted you permission to a property, just open Search Console and select the property using the property selector. Otherwise, you'll need to add a new property to your Search Console account as described next.

Adding a property does not affect your website on Google Search, it only enables you to track your site's performance on Google. If you don't get it done all in one sitting, or have setup problems, it won't hurt your website.

To add a new property:

  1. Open the property selector dropdown in any Search Console page, or click here.
  2. Select + Add property on the dropdown.
  3. Choose the type of property to add:
    URL-prefix property (https://example.com)

    A URL-prefix property specifies the start of a URL. Any URLs that begin with this prefix are included in that property. For example, if your URL-prefix property is https://example.com/pets/, then all the following URLs will be part of your property:

    • https://example.com/pets/puppies
    • https://example.com/pets/cats?a=siamese&b=in-stock
    • https://example.com/pets/supplies/food/crickets

    The following URLs won't match:

    • http://example.com/pets/ [The URL prefix specified is https, not http.]
    • https://m.example.com/pets/ [Subdomains, such as m.example.com, are not included in this URL prefix.]

     

    Tips:

    • Specify the full URL prefix for your property, including the final / mark. Any URLs that start with this prefix are included in your property.
    • Include the http:// or https:// in the URL. If your site supports multiple protocols (http and https), you must add a separate property for each protocol. Similarly, if you support multiple subdomains (such as example.com, m.example.com, and www.example.com) you must add a separate property for each subdomain.
    • If you need to track data separately for multiple subsections of your site, consider creating a separate Search Console property for each domain or subpath that you want to track, as well as a property that contains them all. For example, if you have a travel site with specific subfolders covering Ireland, France, and Spain, you might create accounts for the following URL-prefix properties:
      • https://www.example.com/ (or a Domain property for example.com)
      • https://www.example.com/france/
      • https://www.example.com/ireland/
      • https://www.example.com/spain/
      • http://m.example.com/ (for your mobile site)
    If you support variations of your domain or protocol (m.example.com, http://example.com, https://example.com), consider telling Google which URLs are canonical. This helps Google crawl your website more effectively.
    Domain property (example.com)

    Specify a Domain property to capture data from that domain and all subdomains and protocols (http/https). See below to learn the supported syntax and to understand which URLs are included in your property. A Domain property requires you to verify ownership using DNS record verification, unless the property is on a Google product such as Blogger or Google Sites.

    Syntax

    A Domain property is created by specifying just the root domain of your site and any optional subdomains except for www.

    Do not include the protocol (http/https) or a path (/some/path/) in your property definition. If you need to specify a protocol or path, you must create a URL-prefix property.

    The following URLs are all valid Domain property definitions:

    • m.example.com
    • example.com
    • support.m.example.org
    • support.m.example.co.es

    Don't include a www prefix. Domain properties automatically include both www and non-www prefixes; that is, if you specify www.example.com as your property URL, the property will be created as example.com, and include data from both www.example.com and example.com.

    We don't support domain-property verification of public suffixes

    Coverage

    A Domain property aggregates data for all subdomains, protocols, and subpaths of the property. For example, if you define a Domain property as "example.com", the data includes example.com, any subdomains of example.com (for example, m.example.com, support.m.example.com, www.example.com, and so on), and any subpaths of any of those domains, on http, https, and ftp.

    Here are some example Domain properties, and what URLs they cover:

    Domain definition Included URLs
    example.com
    • http://example.com
    • https://example.com
    • http://m.example.com
    • http://a.b.c.example.com
    • https://m.example.com/any/path/here
    • ...
    • NOT http://example.org - The public suffix (.org, .com, and so on) is part of the property name, so the Domain property "example.com" does not include "example.org" or "example.il.com".
    fish.example.com
    • http://fish.example.com
    • https://fish.example.com
    • https://support.fish.example.com
    • https://support.fish.example.com/any/path/here
    • ...
    • NOT example.com - fish.example.com is a child of example.com, and a child domain doesn't contain data about the parent domain.
    example.co.cn
    • http://example.co.cn
    • https://example.co.cn
    • https://support.example.co.cn
    • https://support.example.co.cn/any/path/here
    • ...
    • NOT example.co.de - The public suffix (.cn, .de) is part of the property name, and different suffixes are different properties.

     

    If you want to separate your Domain property data by subdomain, path, or protocol, use one of the following techniques:

    • Add a page filter in the Performance report to see data for specific protocols or subdomains
    • Create additional URL-prefix properties for segments of the Domain property; for example for the Domain property example.com, create additional properties for m.example.com, http://example.com, https://example.com/spain/, and so on.

    Google-hosted property (Sites, Blogger, Workspace)

    If you want to add a Google-hosted site, such as a Sites or Blogger site, or a Google Workspace account, you can create either a URL-prefix or Domain property, and verification will happen automatically, if you are signed in with the same account as you use to manage the Google-hosted property.
  4. You will be asked to choose a verification method. After choosing, you will be shown the required verification steps for the chosen method. You can verify immediately or save your settings and resume the process later:
    • To verify immediately, follow the verification steps described without closing the popup window, then click Verify in the popup window. If it will take you some time to perform these steps, you can always save your settings and resume the process later (described next).
    • To pause and resume the process later, click Verify later to save your current state, close the popup, and verify your site at your convenience. After you have performed the required verification steps, finish verification by selecting the saved (but unverified) property in the property selector in the navigation bar, and selecting Verify.
  5. Data should begin to appear in your property in a few days. Data collection for a property starts as soon anyone adds the property to their Search Console account, even before verification. Data collection continues as long as any user has that property in their account, whether or not it has a verified owner. If your property has no data several days after verification, it is possibly because the site hasn't been seen in Google Search, or that you have specified the wrong URL (for example, you specified http instead of https for your URL-prefix property).
Support for non-latin characters in property URLs
Search Console supports Internationalizing Domain Names in Applications (IDNA) as site URLs. Just type your domain name as usual, and it will appear correctly in Search Console. For example, if you type http://bücher.example.com/ in the Add property box, it will appear correctly.

Re-add a removed property

You can re-add a property that you have removed without verification, as long as the property still has one verified owner.

To re-add the property, simply add the property as described above in steps 1-3, and you should automatically be re-verified.

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