This guide walks through connecting your website to Google Search Console and submitting a sitemap: preparing a Google account, adding your site, verifying domain ownership by adding a TXT record in Hostinger's DNS Zone Editor, submitting the sitemap, and checking discovered pages. Every step includes a screenshot.
Once your website is built and you’re ready to start SEO, connecting it to Google Search Console and submitting a sitemap is the first thing to do. Search Console is Google’s free tool for monitoring how your site performs in Google Search: checking whether pages are indexed, spotting crawl errors, seeing which search queries bring visitors in, and submitting your sitemap so Google finds new pages faster.
Below is the full flow, from logging in with a Google account to verifying domain ownership and submitting the sitemap.
Google account
Prepare a Google account. If you don’t have one, register first; everything below happens inside this account.
Search for Google Search Console
Search for Google Search Console in Google and open the official tool page.
Start Google Search Console
Click the Start Now button on the page.
Select a property type
Enter your domain under Domain and click CONTINUE. Note that the Domain type suits sites with subdomains: it covers the whole domain and all subdomains for full monitoring, but you lose access to Google’s disavow tool for rejecting backlinks.
For most sites, adding a URL prefix property type is enough. Either way, the verification steps are the same, and you can add both property types at once; the data shown under each type differs slightly.
Domain
Adding a Domain property submits your main domain and all its subdomains to Search Console, and lets you see whole-site data: clicks and impressions, average position, common search queries, and traffic sources from Google Search. It also gives you monitoring tools like the coverage report (for crawl or indexing errors), the URL parameters tool (telling Google how to treat parameters in your URLs), and the links tool (showing which sites link to yours).
URL prefix
Adding a URL prefix property submits your main domain plus subdomains that share a specific prefix. It fits sites with multiple versions (like desktop and mobile) or sites using different subdomains.
Copy the TXT verification value
In the domain ownership verification dialog, follow the suggested setup. The recommended method is adding a TXT record: click COPY to copy the TXT value.
Add the TXT value
Then add this TXT record in your DNS settings. Below is how to do it in Hostinger‘s DNS Zone Editor.
Hostinger
Log in to Hostinger, select the website you need to add the TXT record to, and open its Dashboard.
In the backend, open DNS Zone Editor under Advanced, set the record Type to TXT, paste the copied value in TXT Value, and click Add Record.
Propagation can take up to 48 hours, but in practice you can usually click VERIFY after a minute or two and pass.
Submit your sitemap
Once verified, submit your sitemap. Select your property, meaning your domain, and click Sitemaps in the left sidebar. The sitemap URL is usually https://example.com/sitemap.xml, but some SEO plugins (like Yoast SEO) generate a different format, for example https://example.com/sitemap_index.xml; don’t submit the wrong one.
Check Discovered Pages
After submitting the sitemap, wait a while and check Discovered pages to see how many pages have been found. From there, Google indexes pages gradually over time.
Search Console covers how your site is indexed and performs in Google Search. To see what visitors do once they land, pair it with a GA4 data stream.
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