Google Search Console

Verify your site

Google Search Console shows which searches bring people to your site, which of your pages Google has found, and any problems it meets. To use it, show Google you own the site:

1. Publish your site, if it isn't live yet.
2. In Search Console, choose Add property, then URL prefix, and enter your site's address. Use your own domain once your site is live there, your shinglesites.site address otherwise.
3. Under Other verification methods, choose HTML tag and copy the tag.
4. In your site's editor, open Widgets and paste the tag into Verification tag under Google Search Console. Shingle keeps only the code in it.
5. Save widgets, then publish, so the tag is on your live site.
6. Back in Search Console, choose Verify. Its reports can take a few days to fill in.

Google's other methods don't work with a Shingle site: its Google Analytics and Tag Manager tags wait for each visitor's cookie choice, and Google's HTML file can't be added to your site. If your site is on your own domain, you can instead verify the whole domain with a DNS record at your domain provider, as Search Console explains.

Send Google your sitemap

Your site's sitemap lists every page for Google, and Shingle keeps it up to date each time you publish. The Google Search Console card shows its address once your site is live. Copy it, open Sitemaps in Search Console, paste it and choose Submit.

Keep the tag in place

Google checks the tag again from time to time, so leave it there. Changes you ask Shingle for keep it. Restoring a version from before you added it removes it when you next publish; add it again if that happens.

If you move your site to your own domain, add that address in Search Console as a new property and replace the tag with its new one.

To give someone else access, add them in Search Console under Settings, then Users and permissions: one verified owner is enough. You need a member role or higher to change the tag.