How to add your store to Google

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google. It shows you which of your store pages are indexed, which keywords bring visitors, and any issues Google has found.

Your FreshStore account connects to it for you. You do not need to copy verification codes or edit any DNS records yourself.

Connect Google to your store

1. In your account, go to Stores and open the store you want to connect.
2. Open the Traffic tab, then the Google tab, then Setup.
3. Work through the three steps in order.

1. Connect Google

Click Connect. You will be sent to Google to sign in and give FreshStore permission. You need a Google account, and all of your stores can go under the same one.

When you come back, the step shows Connected as your email address.

2. Add your store

Click Add property. This adds your store to your Google Search Console account with the correct URL. The step then shows Added.

3. Verify ownership

Click Verify. FreshStore does the verification for you:

• If your store is on a custom domain that we host the DNS for, we add the verification TXT record to your domain automatically.
• For every other store, including stores on a free FreshStore address, we push the verification meta tag to your storefront automatically.

When it is done, the step shows Verified and the Performance, Indexing and Sitemap tabs start filling with your data.

Submit your XML sitemap

Your store builds an XML sitemap automatically with all of its pages, and lists it in your robots.txt file. Google will find it on its own, but submitting it directly is faster.

Go to Traffic > Google > Sitemap and click Submit sitemap. The button changes to Resubmit once it is done.

🔗 How to submit your XML sitemap to Google

Doing it manually instead

You do not need this if you used the steps above. Use it only if you want to manage the property in Google Search Console yourself.

🔗 Google Search Console

Click Add property, choose URL prefix, and enter your store URL.

Verify with an HTML tag

This works for every store, including stores on a free FreshStore address.

1. In Google Search Console, choose the HTML tag method and copy the meta tag it gives you.
2. Go to your store dashboard and open Store > Settings > Store.
3. Paste the tag into the Header Scripts and Meta Tags box and click Save.
4. Go to Store > Tools > Store Cache and clear your store cache.
5. Go back to Google Search Console and click Verify.

🔗 How to add Meta Tags and Custom Scripts

Verify with a TXT record

If your store is on a custom domain, you can add the TXT record yourself.

1. In Google Search Console, choose the TXT record method and copy the value. It starts with google-site-verification=.
2. In your account, go to Domains.
3. Find your domain and click DNS. You can also click Manage and open the DNS Records tab.
4. Click Add Record.
5. Set Type to TXT, set Name to @, and paste the value from Google into Content. Leave the TTL as it is.
6. Click Add record.
7. Wait a few minutes, then go back to Google Search Console and click Verify.

Troubleshooting

Verification is taking a long time

Two to five minutes is normal. If it takes longer, Google has usually not fetched the tag from your store yet. Click Re-check connection, and wait a few more minutes before trying again. If it is still not verified after 15 minutes, check that your store's latest version is live.

Clicking Verify over and over does not make it faster. The check is already running in the background.

My connection stopped working

The Setup tab tells you what happened and what to do:

• Your Google connection was revoked. Click Reconnect on step 1.
• This store is no longer a property in your Google account. Click Add property on step 2.
• Google verification was lost. Click Verify on step 3.

Verification failed when doing it manually

If you used the HTML tag method:

• Clear your store cache after saving the tag. Google reads the cached page until you do.
• Open your store, right click the page, choose View page source, and search for google-site-verification. If it is not there, the tag was not saved or the cache was not cleared.
• Check that you pasted the whole meta tag, not just part of it.

If you used the TXT record method:

• Check the value is the full string Google gave you, including the google-site-verification= prefix.
• Check the Name is @ and the Type is TXT.
• Give it up to an hour. DNS changes usually appear within minutes, but they can take longer to reach every part of the internet.

For more on TXT records and other DNS topics, see our DNS and domain troubleshooting guide.