Search Console setup: doing it properly and the reports worth reading
Setting up Google Search Console properly is part of SEO foundation, a one-off EUR 450-750 that also covers analytics, indexation, technical hygiene, titles, internal links and a 3-6 month plan. The tool itself is free, so if your site is small and you can reach your domain settings, the checklist on this page lets you do it yourself.
Search Console is where Google tells you which searches showed your pages and which pages it has indexed or left out. Setting it up properly means it still belongs to you after your web supplier changes, and that you know which reports deserve your attention.
What a proper setup looks like
A Domain property, verified through DNS
Search Console offers two kinds of property. A URL-prefix property covers one exact address and nothing else. A Domain property covers the whole domain: with and without www, http and https, and every subdomain. Choose the Domain property, so a later move from www to the bare domain still lands in one place.
A Domain property can only be verified through a DNS record, TXT or CNAME, at your domain provider. That works in your favour: whoever controls the domain controls the verification.
Owned by the business, shared with everyone else
Create the property from a Google account that belongs to the business, not to a freelancer or to one employee. When we build a site, you own the code, the repository and the database, and Search Console should follow the same rule. Anyone working on the site, including us, is added as a full user, who can use the data but cannot decide who else gets in.
No former owners left behind
A previous agency that verified the site may still be a verified owner. Deleting that entry is not enough while its verification token still exists. Remove the token first, whether it is a DNS record, an HTML file or a meta tag, then the owner.
The setup, checked
| Part | Why it matters | How to check |
|---|---|---|
| Domain property | One property covers every version of your address | The property name has no https:// in front of it |
| DNS verification | Access follows control of the domain, not a person | The verification record is visible at your domain provider |
| Business-owned owner | Survives a change of supplier or staff | Users and permissions lists a business account as owner |
| No stale owners | A former supplier cannot keep seeing or changing things | Every owner listed is someone you still work with |
| Sitemap submitted | Tells Google which pages you want found | The Sitemaps report shows the status Success |
| Analytics linked | Queries sit next to what visitors did next | Search Console reports appear inside Google Analytics |
| Email alerts read | Indexing problems reach a person | The receiving inbox belongs to someone who opens it |
The reports worth reading
Performance
Filter to one page and read the queries it appears for. If a service page appears for services you do not offer, it is unclear about what it sells. Queries with plenty of impressions and few clicks point at a title and description that do not match the search. If you serve one country, filter by country first.
Page indexing
- Excluded by noindex tag. Read this list on launch day. A noindex left over from a staging site keeps pages out of Google.
- Crawled - currently not indexed. Google read the page and left it out. For a page you care about, improve it or merge it with a similar one.
- Discovered - currently not indexed. Google knows the address but has not fetched it. Check that your own pages link to it.
- Duplicate without user-selected canonical. Several addresses show the same content, and Google is choosing between them for you.
- Not found (404). Only a problem if the address used to be a real page or other sites link to it. Then it needs a redirect.
URL Inspection and Links
URL Inspection shows whether one address is indexed, which version Google treats as the original and when it was last crawled. The Links report shows which sites link to you and which pages your own site links to most. Your main service page belongs near the top of that second list.
Numbers to read with care
- Average position for the whole site. It averages every query and every appearance, so a new page showing low for many searches can pull it down while your important pages improve.
- Query rows that do not add up. Search Console leaves out rare queries to protect searchers' privacy, so the query table totals less than the page table.
What moves the price
Where SEO foundation lands within EUR 450-750 depends on how much there is to untangle: one domain or several, a fresh property or one with former suppliers attached, a clean index or one full of duplicates and old URLs without redirects. Access to your domain provider is the part that waits on you, because verification cannot happen without it. A problem in the site's code, such as a template that creates duplicate addresses, is build work and is quoted separately.
Process and timeline
On a site you already have, SEO foundation runs in this order:
- Access to your domain provider and a business Google account.
- Domain property verified, former owners removed.
- Sitemap submitted, analytics linked, alerts pointed at a real inbox.
- Technical hygiene, titles and internal links fixed from what the reports show.
- A 3-6 month plan written from the same reports.
On a new build, the property belongs on the launch checklist, inside the build's own timeline: 1-2 weeks at step 01, 2-3 weeks at step 02, 3-6 weeks at step 03 and 6-12 weeks at step 04. Verifying before launch means key pages can be inspected on launch day, when a leftover noindex does its damage. On a Next.js site, the sitemap can be generated from the pages themselves, so it never goes stale. Every step and its price is listed in one place.
Two things can continue after that, and neither is required. Care, at EUR 100-300 a month, covers updates, monitoring, backups and small fixes, not redesigns or new features. SEO growth, at EUR 500-800 a month, includes the reporting: someone reads these reports every month and acts on them.
When to spend less
- A small site on one domain, and you can reach your DNS settings. Use the table above and do it yourself; the setup is not the hard part.
- Do not pay monthly just to have Search Console read. On a site with few pages and little search demand, checking the indexing report and the emails yourself covers it.
- A rebuild is coming. Do not pay for foundation on the old site. Verify the Domain property now, since it survives a rebuild, and do the rest on the new site.
Questions buyers ask
Do I need Search Console if I already have Google Analytics?
Yes. Analytics shows what visitors did after they arrived. Search Console shows the searches that displayed your pages and whether Google indexed them at all. A page Google left out never appears in analytics, so analytics cannot tell you it is missing.
Why do Search Console clicks not match visits from Google in analytics?
They count different things. Search Console counts clicks on Google's results, while analytics counts visits, and only from visitors who accepted tracking and did not block it. Use Search Console for questions about search and analytics for what happened on the site.
A former agency set up our Search Console. How do we get it back?
If you control the domain, verify a Domain property yourself through DNS. That gives you owner access, including the data already collected, without anyone's help. Then remove the agency's verification token and its owner entry. If you do not control the domain either, recover that first.
Does requesting indexing make a page rank faster?
No. It asks Google to crawl the address and guarantees neither indexing nor a position. Use it once after fixing an important page. Pressing it again adds nothing.
Send us your domain and tell us who set up your current Search Console, and we will tell you what needs fixing. Get in touch.
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