Domain Properties in Google Search Console

Google Search Console to Incorporate Data from All Website Properties (HTTP, HTTPS, WWW & non-WWW)

Posted on by Dragan Nikolic

Google Search Console (Google Webmaster Tools) is the most important tool if you own a website and want to rank on Google.

It was a best practice to verify all versions of you website:

  • HTTP
  • HTTPS
  • WWW
  • non-WWW

This gave you the best view of your site and its performance in the eyes of Google. But this made tracking things very difficult. You needed to keep track of 4 different Google Webmaster properties. And you needed to stitch those 4 sub-domain images to get a comprehensive view of your whole domain.

Google Search Console Welcome Screen

To make this easier, Google announces “domain properties” in Search Console. It’s a way of verifying and gathering the data from Google Search for whole domains, not just sub-domains or protocols.

The domain properties will show data fo:

  • All URLs & paths
  • All protocols
  • Subdomains

This gives you a complete view of your website without the need to manually combine dataand switch between Google Search Console properties.

Regardless of whether you use m-dot URLs for mobile pages, or are migrating to HTTPS and don’t know how to combine the HTTP and HTTPS data, Google Search Console will be able to help you see your website exactly the same way Google Search sees it.

How to Combine Google Search Console Properties

The best way to combine Google Search Console properties is via DNS verification. If you already have DNS verification set up, Search Console will automatically create new domain properties for you over the next few weeks, with combined data over all properties.

Otherwise, to add a new domain property, go to the property selector, add a new domain property, and be sure to use DNS verification. I recommend using domain properties where possible going forward.

Google says that domain properties were built based on user feedback.

Should you have any questions, feel free to drop by leave us a comment to Google Webmasters on Twitter or use the feedback feature built in to Search Console as well.

Source: https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/02/announcing-domain-wide-data-in-search.html

Dragan Nikolic

Dragan Nikolic

Co-founder and Editor at ThematoSoup
WordPress and SEO is what I love working on. When I'm not doing website audits, I write about WordPress and manage WordPress projects. Feel free to connect with me.
Dragan Nikolic

@NikolicDragan

Co-founder of @ThematoSoup interested in #minimalism, #WordPress and #marketing.
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