Setting Up Google Search Console: A Beginner's Guide

What Is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool from Google that shows you how your website performs in Google Search. It's not an analytics tool that measures visitor behavior on your site — it shows you what happens before the click: Which search queries your page is displayed for, how often it's clicked, and what position it holds.

For anyone doing SEO or AIO, Search Console is indispensable. It provides the data you need to steer your strategy — directly from Google, without estimates or third parties.

Step 1: Create an Account and Add a Property

Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with your Google account. Click "Add property" and select the "Domain" type. Enter your domain (e.g., proofofreach.de) without https:// or www.

The Domain type is the best choice because it covers all variants of your website — with and without www, http and https. You only need one property instead of four.

Step 2: Verify the Domain

Google needs to verify that the domain belongs to you. With the Domain variant, this works via a DNS record. Google shows you a TXT record that you enter in the DNS settings at your domain provider (e.g., INWX).

At INWX, go to your domain, click "DNS Records," add a new TXT record, and paste the value Google shows you. Verification can take a few minutes — sometimes up to 48 hours.

Step 3: Submit the Sitemap

Once verification is confirmed, navigate to "Sitemaps" in the left menu of Search Console. Enter your sitemap URL (e.g., https://proofofreach.de/sitemap.xml) and click "Submit." Google then begins to systematically crawl and index the pages listed there.

Check after a few days whether the sitemap is marked as "Success" and how many pages Google has indexed from it.

Step 4: Understanding the Key Reports

Performance

The Performance report is the heart of Search Console. It shows you four metrics: Impressions (how often your page was displayed in search results), Clicks (how often someone clicked on it), CTR (Click-Through Rate — the ratio of clicks to impressions), and the average position (where your page stands in results).

You can filter by queries, pages, countries, and devices — especially useful for local SEO. Most useful: Filter by "Queries" and sort by impressions. This shows you which keywords your page appears for — even if you're not getting clicks yet.

Indexing

Under "Pages," you'll see which of your pages are indexed by Google and which aren't. Pages that aren't indexed cannot appear in search results. Common reasons for non-indexing: The page is blocked by robots.txt, it has a noindex tag, or Google crawled it but deemed it not worth indexing.

Core Web Vitals

This report shows the performance status of all your pages — split by mobile and desktop. Green means good, yellow means needs improvement, red means poor. With a static HTML website, all pages should be green.

What to Check Every Week

Once a week: Take a quick look at the Performance report. Are impressions rising? Are there new keywords? (Tip: SEO takes 3–6 months for initial results.) Are there pages with many impressions but few clicks (these would benefit from a better meta title)?

Once a month: Check the indexing status of all pages. Are there new errors? Check Core Web Vitals. Log current numbers in your daten.json.

After every new article: Go to "URL Inspection" in Search Console, enter the URL of the new article, and click "Request Indexing." This speeds up inclusion in the Google index.

FAQ

Last updated: March 25, 2026