Lesson 6.7 · 40 minSearch Console

What you will have

The student's domain is a verified property in Google Search Console, the sitemap is submitted and accepted, the home page has been inspected, and Search Console is linked to the GA4 property.

Video

The video for this lesson is not recorded yet.

Prompts used in this lesson

Part 2 — Checking the sitemap before submitting it

Purpose: I am about to submit our sitemap to Google Search Console and want to be
sure it lists the right pages.

Context: the sitemap was created in an earlier lesson. Since then the project gained
/thank-you, /admin and its sub-pages, /api routes, and /privacy and /terms. The site
is live on its domain.

Done looks like: a short report that states
- the sitemap address on the live site and that it loads successfully;
- every address it lists, each using the live domain with https;
- that it includes / and the public content pages, and excludes /admin, /api and
  /thank-you;
- what robots.txt allows and disallows, and that it points to the sitemap;
- whether /admin and /thank-you are marked so search engines do not index them.

Constraints: check the live site, not just the code. Change nothing yet. If something
is wrong, list it and propose the fix; wait for my approval before editing.

Verify before reporting: fetch the live sitemap and robots.txt and quote the relevant
lines in the report.

Do along

Work on your own project. Pause the video where a step says so.

1. Pause when the prompt appears in Part 2. Run the sitemap-check prompt. Fix anything it finds, with Claude verifying on the live site.
2. Pause after Part 3. Add your domain to Search Console as a Domain property. Add the TXT record at your DNS provider; change no other record. Verify. If the record is not found yet, keep watching and retry later.
3. Pause after Part 4. Submit your sitemap and read its status.
4. Pause after Part 5. Inspect your home page; run the live test; request indexing if the test is clean. Inspect /thank-you and confirm it is excluded.
5. Pause after Part 7. Link Search Console in GA4 and publish the Search Console report collection.
6. Note in docs/measurement-plan.md the date Search Console was verified. Commit:

git add -A
git commit -m "Lesson 6.7: Search Console connected, sitemap checked"
git push

Check your work

1. Open Search Console and select your domain property. Expected: the property opens without a verification prompt; under Settings, ownership shows as verified.
2. Open Sitemaps. Expected: your sitemap is listed with the status Success.
3. Inspect the home page address. Expected: either "URL is on Google", or "URL is not on Google" with a clean live test and indexing requested.
4. Inspect /thank-you. Expected: not on Google, excluded by the page's own no-index instruction.
5. In GA4 → Admin → Product links → Search Console links. Expected: one link listed, to your web stream.

Common problems

• Verification fails repeatedly. → The record has not spread yet, or it was added with the wrong name, or on the wrong domain. → Wait; then ask Claude: "Look up the TXT records for <your-domain> from the terminal and tell me whether one beginning google-site-verification is present." If it is absent after a day, re-check the host field (blank or @) at your provider.
• Sitemap status "Couldn't fetch". → Wrong address, or the sitemap is blocked or broken. → Open the sitemap address in a browser; re-run the Part 2 prompt.
• Sitemap lists localhost or a Vercel preview address. → The site address setting from 3.9 is wrong in production. → Ask Claude to find where the base address comes from, correct it, deploy, and re-fetch the live sitemap to confirm.
• "URL is not on Google" for the home page, with a reason about being blocked or "noindex". → Something tells Google to stay away. → Give Claude the exact reason text and ask it to find and fix the cause, then run the live test again.

Homework

About 25 minutes, after the lesson. Nothing here is needed to start 6.8. Leave the DNS record and the sitemap alone. Write in your course notes. Task 3 may change the project: commit without a tag.

1. The other pages (~10 min). Inspect /privacy, /terms, any other public page of yours, and /admin/login. Table: address, the headline result, what you did. Request indexing only for public pages you want found. Done when: every row has a result and no admin page is on Google. If one is, give Claude the result text and ask for the cause.
2. Your prediction (~10 min). Write five searches you expect a customer to type when looking for a business like yours, in their words, not yours. Put a reminder in your calendar for four weeks from now to compare the list with the Queries table. Done when: five searches are written and the reminder is set.
3. Would you click? (~5 min). Ask Claude to quote the title and description of your live home page without changing anything. Read them as a stranger who has just searched. If they would not make you click, give Claude new wording for those two texts only and have it verify on the live site. Done when: your notes say "kept" or "changed", and why.