How to Set Up Search Console, Analytics and AI Search Tracking Before You Publish

To set up Google Search Console, Google Analytics 4 and AI search tracking, you need a few hours and access to your domain settings.

Create the Search Console property and verify it, submit your sitemap, set up a GA4 property and data stream, link the two, mark your key events, and write down a list of questions to test in AI tools.

Do all of it before the first article goes live. Google Search Console and Analytics only record what happens after you connect them, so every day you wait is a day with no baseline.

This guide is for owners and marketers who are about to publish. It follows Google’s own help pages for each step, so you can check any instruction at the source.

Set up measurement before you publish, because the baseline cannot be backfilled

A baseline is the record of where you stand before the work starts. Without it, the first month of results has nothing to be compared with, and you cannot say whether a change came from your content or from the season.

Google’s own help page explains why timing matters. Google Search Console collects data for a property as soon as anyone adds it, even before verification, but data takes a few days to start to accrue. Analytics works the same way: it records visits from the moment the tag is live.

Neither tool can show you last month’s numbers for a site you connected today. Google Search Console keeps data for 16 months, and Google Analytics keeps what it has collected since the tag went live. The earlier you connect them, the longer your baseline runs.

Google Search Console shows how your site appears in Google results. Google Analytics shows what visitors do after they arrive. AI search tracking shows whether AI tools name or cite your brand. Once the numbers flow, how to measure search and AI visibility gives the monthly routine for reading them.

How to set up Google Search Console in five steps

Google Search Console is free, and you need a Google account to use it. Have your website login, your domain name provider login (also called your domain registrar) and your sitemap address ready, then follow the five steps in order.

1. Choose between a Domain property and a URL prefix property

Open Google Search Console, open the property selector and choose Add property. Google offers two types, and the choice decides what data you see.

A Domain property covers everything under your domain: every subdomain, such as blog.example.com, and both http and https. A URL prefix property covers only the exact address you enter, including the protocol, so https://example.com and https://www.example.com count as different properties.

For most businesses, the Domain property is the better choice. Enter the root domain without the www prefix and without a path. Google’s help page notes that a Domain property automatically includes both the www and non-www versions.

If you cannot change DNS records, choose the URL prefix option instead. If you can, you can also add both. An account can hold up to 1,000 properties, so there is room for both.

2. Verify ownership of your Google Search Console property with a DNS record or HTML file

To verify ownership, you prove to Google that you control the site, because owners can see sensitive search data and take actions that affect how the site appears. A verified owner has the highest level of permission in Google Search Console.

For a Domain property, the only method is a DNS record. Google Search Console shows you a TXT record containing a verification code. Copy it.

Paste it into your domain provider’s DNS settings, leaving the host or name field blank or set to @ as your provider’s guide describes, return to Google Search Console and select Verify.

Some providers need a CNAME record instead of a TXT record, and Search Console tells you which. If your provider is listed in the wizard, Google can add the record for you.

For a URL prefix property you have more choices, and each verification method suits a different setup:

• HTML file: download the file Google Search Console gives you and upload it to your site’s root directory, unchanged. Google does not follow redirects to another domain when it looks for this file.
• HTML tag: copy a meta tag into the head section of your homepage, and leave the meta tag in place afterward.
• Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager: use the tracking code that is already on your pages, if you have one and use the same Google account.

Google advises adding more than one verification method in case one fails, for example if a template change removes your tag. Do not delete the verification token or the DNS record, even after verification succeeds. Google Search Console checks for it periodically, and if it cannot be found, your permissions expire after a grace period.

3. Submit your XML sitemap

A sitemap is a file that tells Google which pages on your site it should know about. The XML sitemap is the most common format, and most platforms generate an XML sitemap for you. Submitting it means telling Google where to find the file. You cannot upload a sitemap to Google.

Sitemaps help Google and other search engines find your pages. Google says a very small site, about 500 pages or fewer, probably does not need one, and that platforms such as Squarespace and Wix usually manage the sitemap for you.

Open the Sitemaps report, paste the sitemap URL into the Add a new sitemap box and select Submit. Google tries to fetch it straight away. The status should read Success. If it says Couldn’t fetch, open the row for the detail and fix the cause.

You need owner permission to submit a sitemap in this report. Without it, list the sitemap address in your robots.txt file instead.

4. Add the people who need access

Go to Settings, then Users and permissions. A property owner can add or remove other users. Give site administrators, your developer, agency or colleagues the lowest access level that lets them do their job, and keep at least two verified site owners so you never lose access.

Website owners and site administrators should review users and permissions after any staff change.

Google warns that if all verified owners lose access, every user loses access to the property. If a previous owner or agency leaves, remove their verification token from the site after you have verified yourself.

5. Check that data is arriving in your Google Search Console account

Open the Performance report. Google calls it the Performance report (Search results), and many owners call it the search results report. It shows four metrics: clicks, impressions, click-through rate (the clicks divided by the impressions) and average position. The default view covers the past three months.

On a brand new property, expect it to be empty at first. Google says it takes a few days for data to start to accrue. Check again in two or three days, then open the Page indexing report to see which pages Google has found and how many are indexed pages.

Finally, use the URL Inspection tool on your homepage. Paste the correct URL, with the protocol, exactly as the page loads in a browser. It tells you whether Google has the page in Google’s index, and if not, lets you request indexing.

Check Core Web Vitals, indexing and the other Google Search Console reports first

Once data arrives, Google Search Console has more reports than a new owner needs. Six matter in the first month, and each one comes from a Google help page.

• Performance report. Google describes it as showing how your site performs in Google Search results: clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position, by query, page, country, device and search appearance. The queries are the search terms people typed before they saw your site. These key metrics describe your site’s performance and your search performance.
• Page indexing report. It shows which pages Google can find and index, and lists indexing problems it ran into. Check how many pages Google has indexed and compare the count with the number you expect, since a gap points to a technical problem.
• Core Web Vitals report. It groups your URLs as poor, need improvement or good, using real world usage data for three measures: LCP, INP and CLS. A URL group takes the status of its worst metric. The data comes from the Chrome UX Report, which gathers anonymized metrics from real visitors.
• Manual actions report. A manual action means a human reviewer at Google decided pages on your site break its spam policies. If one exists, some or all of the site may not appear in Google Search results.
• Enhancements and Shopping reports. If your site uses structured data, Google Search Console shows which rich results are valid. A rich result is a Google search result with extra features beyond the standard blue link. Separate reports cover types such as job postings and merchant listings. Reports for products appear under the Shopping tab. Use the URL Inspection tool to check a specific page.
• Security issues report. It shows whether Google found signs that your site was hacked or could harm a visitor. Affected pages can carry a warning label in search results.

Treat each report as a to-do list, not a scoreboard. Open the Links report to review internal links and external links, which it groups by canonical pages. Add internal links so Google reaches all the pages on your site, and check external links to see who points to you.

If the Enhancements reports show structured data errors, ask your web developers to fix the markup, then run URL inspection on the specific page again. Valid structured data makes a page eligible for rich results, such as job postings or product listings.

SEO professionals and SEO specialists use these reports to spot technical SEO issues, such as missing meta descriptions or structured data that was not implemented correctly. If your pages also appear in Google Discover or Google News, check the reports for those where they apply.

Add an email address you read to your Google Search Console account, so alerts about new issues reach a person.

How to set up Google Analytics 4 so it records what matters

Google Analytics 4, usually shortened to GA4, records what visitors do on your site.

1. Create your Google Analytics account and property

Go to analytics.google.com. If it is your first time, select Start measuring. Name the account after your business, then create a property.

When you create the property, Google asks for a name, a reporting time zone and a currency. Choose the time zone of the place where you report your results.

You need the Editor role to add a property. If you created the account, you already have it.

2. Add a web data stream and install the Google tag or Google Tag Manager

A data stream is the source of the data. Under Admin, open Data streams, select Add stream, then Web, and enter your website address.

Google then gives you a Google tag, a short piece of code, and a Measurement ID that begins with G-. You have three ways to install it:

• A plugin or built-in field. Many platforms, including WordPress with Site Kit, Shopify, Squarespace, Wix and HubSpot, have a field where you paste the Measurement ID.
• Custom HTML. Paste the tag where your platform allows custom code in the head of every page.
• Google Tag Manager. Use this if you already run it, and add the Google Analytics configuration tag there.

Install it once. Two copies of the tag on the same page cause double counting.

3. Confirm the data is coming in

Google says data collection can take up to 30 minutes to begin. Open the Realtime report, then visit your own site in a separate browser window. You should see yourself appear.

4. Mark your key events

A key event is an event that measures an action particularly important to your business: a form submission, a booking request, a call click or a download. Any event Analytics collects can become a key event, and you mark it in the Events or Key events settings.

Decide which three or four actions count as a result for you, and mark only those. Google allows up to 30 key events in a standard property, but a short list is far more useful. You need the Marketer role or above to mark them.

Conversion tracking is the practice behind this step, and it is what turns visits into a number you can report to the people who decide.

5. Change data retention and check the time zone

Open Admin to configure settings, then Data settings, then Data retention. Google lets you keep user-level and event-level data for 2 months or 14 months. Choose 14 months. This setting affects explorations, not your standard reports, but you want the longer window available.

Connect your Google Analytics account to Google Search Console so one report shows searches and behavior

Google Search Console tells you what happened before the click. Analytics tells you what happened after. Linking them lets you see in one place which search queries lead to which pages, and which of those visits turn into key events.

In Analytics, go to Admin, then Product links, then Search Console links, and select Link. Choose the Search Console property you manage, then the web data stream for your site, then review and submit.

Know the rules before you do it:

• You need the Editor role on the Analytics property and must be a verified owner of the Search Console property.
• A web data stream links to only one Search Console property, and the reverse is also true.
• A link cannot be edited. To change it, delete it and create a new one.
• Google Search Console data appears in Analytics 48 hours after Google Search Console collects it, and covers at most 16 months.
• The Search Console reports are unpublished by default. Find them under Library in the left navigation and publish them.

After linking, two reports appear: Google Organic Search Queries and Google Organic Search Traffic. Both are useful for the first month’s baseline.

Set up AI search tracking, because Google’s tools do not show the whole picture

Google Search Console and Analytics were built around clicks. A growing share of discovery now happens in answers, where someone reads a response from an AI tool and may never visit a site. You need a way to see whether your brand appears there.

Start with what Google already gives you. Google says sites that appear in AI features, such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, are included in the overall search traffic in Google Search Console. They are reported in the Performance report, within the Web search type.

A click on a link in an AI Overview or AI Mode counts as a click, and an AI Overview takes a single position, shared by all of the links in it.

That means Google Search Console includes AI features in your totals but does not give you a separate AI report. For other AI tools, you need three more pieces. What is AI visibility explains the idea in full, and what is answer engine optimization explains how brands become the source an answer cites.

1. Write a fixed question list

Write 10 to 20 questions a buyer would ask where you want your brand named. Include a few that name your category, a few that name a problem you solve and two or three that name your brand. Keep the wording exactly the same every month, so the results can be compared.

2. Test the list in a repeatable way and record the result

Once a month, run each question in the AI tools your buyers use, such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google’s AI Mode. Record three things for each question: whether your brand was mentioned, whether your site was cited as a source, and which other brands or sites were named.

Your first run is the baseline. It will probably show few mentions, which is normal for a site that has not published yet. The point is to have the number before the work, so the change can be shown afterward.

3. Add what the platforms publish

Bing now offers a report built for this. In February 2026, Microsoft announced AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools as a public preview. It reports total citations, the average number of unique pages cited per day, the grounding queries the AI used to retrieve your content and citation counts for individual pages.

Microsoft states that the grounding query data is a sample.

To use it, add and verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools.

In Analytics, you can also watch for visits that arrive from AI tools.

Open Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition, and switch the primary dimension to session source or medium. Look for sources that name AI products, such as chatgpt.com or perplexity.ai. Their names change over time, and not every visit from an AI answer carries a referrer, so treat the count as a floor, not a total.

Record your baseline on one page the day everything is live

When all three are running, take a day-zero snapshot. This is the page you will compare every later month against. Fill it in the day you finish, even if some boxes are empty.

A baseline is more than paperwork.

Wild For Game Safaris, a Botswana operator, shows what a before number is worth: its case study records organic visits rising from 10 to an estimated 907 a month, all of it non-branded and without a paid click. A result like that only means something because someone recorded where it started.

Check the setup works before you publish

Run through these checks the day before launch. Each takes a few minutes.

1. Open your homepage in a private browser window and confirm the Realtime report in Analytics shows the visit.
2. Confirm the Sitemaps report in Google Search Console says Success.
3. Use URL Inspection on the page you are about to publish. After it is live, request indexing.
4. Confirm the Search Console link appears under Product links in Analytics.
5. Submit a test form and confirm the key event is recorded.
6. Save your AI test sheet with the first run complete.

If one check fails, fix it before launch. A broken tag found in month three leaves a hole in your data that cannot be refilled.

A short monthly routine keeps the setup honest

Setup is not the end. Put a recurring thirty minute slot in the calendar for the first of each month. In it, check that the tag still fires, the sitemap still shows Success, the count of indexed pages has not dropped and Core Web Vitals have not slipped.

Then open the Security issues report and the Manual actions report to confirm no new security issues or manual actions have appeared, and run the AI question list again.

When you are ready to turn these numbers into decisions, how to measure search and AI visibility sets out the monthly scorecard. If you are working on the content that will fill these reports, what is content distribution and the ultimate guide to SEO cover the wider picture.

If you would rather have a partner run the measurement for you, the Brand Growth Program is accountability to your Roadmap, measured.

Its plans include a monthly report and a quarterly strategy review, with a live dashboard on the higher plans, and entry requires Discovery. Our distribution service covers the search and AI work being measured.

For a weekly note on what is changing in how brands get found, subscribe to Ground Truth, published on Wednesdays.

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