Google Search Console – How to Add & Remove Users

In the time you read this blog, more than 175 new websites will be added to Google.

To stand out from that crowd, you must have adequate knowledge about different SEO tools – their usage and operation.

One such prominent SEO tool is the Google search console.

Often considered as a complementary tool to Google Analytics (whose role is to analyze your site traffic), the Search Console gives you all the data you need to:

• Optimize Your Web Pages As Per Engagement Stats
• Get Rid of Indexing And Crawling Issues
• Resolve Server errors and Site Load Issues
• Identify the Right Keywords via Preferences of Internet Users
• Re-index updated Web pages
• Get Solid Backlinks
• Rectify Security Issues
• Site Maintenance
• Troubleshoot Mobile Usability And AMP Issues

More specifically, the Google Search Console gives the possibility of knowing the frequency with which Google’s indexing robots ( Google Bot ) visit and index websites.

The tool even goes as far as making a robots.txt file and suggesting HTML improvements to website administrators. On top of that, it is totally FREE.

The Search Console is therefore an essential service for all those who handle SEO.

Let’s move on to:

Steps to Add or Remove User From GSC

** The first four steps are common for both actions.**

Step 1: Go to the Google Search Console page and sign in with your email ID and password.

Note: Make sure you have added your website to Google Search Console.

Step 2: Choose a property on which we want to add or remove a user:

Properties here are websites you own. You may have multiple websites thus multiple properties. Here you can see our website webspero.com.

Step 3: Then go to settings:

It will be in the left corner of your screen along with the icon.

Step 4: Choose Users & Permissions:

Under the Property settings, you will find “users and permissions” just below the “ownership verification”. This is where you know who has access to your Google Search Console account. Here you can verify that there are no unauthorized users on your account.

Steps To Add New User in GSC

1. Click the top right corner to add “New User”:
It is a blue box with a plus symbol and emoji of a person.

2. Enter the email address of the concerned person and also select the type of permission.

• Full Access: Full access as the name conveys grants total access to the user. They can
  perform any actions, such as disavowing links, submitting reconsideration requests in response to manual penalties, re-requesting indexing, or submitting sitemaps.
• Restricted Access: Restricted access grants limited access to users. They can access performance data but can not perform any actions. This access is for internal teams who need the performance data but don’t need to do any manual actions.

3. Lastly, click on Add button

That’s it. Now you will get the notification about granted user access over an email. After adding a user you will see them in the list.

Steps To Remove a User in Google Search Console:

Note: Only the property owner can remove a user from GSC (Google Search Console).

1. Log in and go to “User and Permissions” using the four common steps stated above.

2. Click on three Dots next to the user. Then click remove access.

3. Confirm your choice.

Note: From the User and permissions list, you can, directly, for each user, modify the authorization status: from “total” to “limited”, and vice versa.

Why Add or Remove Users From GSC?

There can be multiple reasons for this:

• Joining of new members of the team.
• Leaving of employees.
• Granting access to the data to different teams – content, SMO, etc.
• Removing any unauthorized users from the account.

Concept of User Access In The Google Search Console

On Google Search Console, users have a certain “level” of permission of a web property. A web-property is a website.

Then, there are four different levels of access to Google Search Console:

1. The Owner level: Roughly speaking, the owner of the account is the manager of your website. This is the person who controls everything in the account, for example:

• Access to all the information & data available
• Create, modify, delete users
• Use all the tools offered. Etc.

By default, the creator of the account on Google Search Console for your website has owner-level access rights.

Further, a user of owner level can have two statuses:

• Confirmed: An owner is confirmed when they have confirmed the ownership of the website via a verification token.
• Delegate: The delegate owners are those who have not yet completed the confirmation process. Verified owners can create a delegate owner using webmaster central. Deleting this owner does not require any verification token so any other owner can delete the delegated owner in the search console.

2. The Full User Level: As its name suggests, full user-level access allows, to use Search Console, but not to administer it. For example, a full user cannot add other users. They also may have limited access to the functionalities.

3. Restricted User: They can only observe data and can’t perform any actions.

4. Associate Level: Associates are those people that have rights to take some defined actions on behalf of your site, or approach certain data. These are related to associate your Search Console with other platforms like Chrome Web Store. However, they can’t view your Search Console account or data directly. The permissions vary depending on the type of association.

How To Confirm Your Status as a Website Owner in Google Search Console

The details of the methods of confirming your status are a bit technical.

Confirming that you are the owner of a website, in Google Search Console, can be done via:

• Connection with your Google Analytics account
• Importing an HTML file (provided by Search Console) by FTP
• Adding an HTML tag in your source code
• Via the Google Tag Manager,
• Or filling in technical information in the customer area of ​​your domain name provider.

It only takes one of the above methods to become a “confirmed” owner. But if you have more than one, it helps Google provide you with relevant information even more.

If you need help with these settings, your best bet is to call on a competent developer, in order to save time on these technical aspects.

Or contact us, so that someone from the team can help you!

How To Add New Owner Access in Search Console

Let’s say you created your Search Console account 2 years ago. And you have just integrated a new partner in your company.

He needs to be on top of everything. You, therefore decide to create owner access for it.

• In the “user and permissions”, you will see an “Add Owner” button:
• If you click on it, a mini-window appears to insert the email of the person to add as the owner:
• All you have to do is click on “Continue”. That’s it!
• The user who has been added as the owner will receive an email notification.

And as a security measure, Google sends an email to all owners of this web property, which informs that new owner access has been created.

How To Remove Existing Owner Access

Now let’s say you have a partner in your business who decides to take his well-deserved retirement.

In this case, he probably no longer needs to have access to the Google Search Console tool. To do this, in the list of owner accesses, to the far right of the table, there are “Cancel validation” links.

These have the effect of simply removing the status of “Owner” from the person concerned. It’s fast and efficient. In general, it is better to limit access to the minimum possible number.

Indeed it is complicated to secure a web tool if you have many people who can access it. Some of them could forget their password, or choose one that is too easy to guess, others could leave the company on bad terms and do stupid things. We are never safe from problems on the Web.

Common FAQs on Google Search Console

Who is Google Search Console for?

It is aimed at the website administrator, ranging from the business manager to the application developer, including an SEO specialist or a digital marketer.

How does Google Search Console work?

The use is quite simple. You can observe and manage your website’s data daily and monthly. Google will let you know via reports if there are any irregularities on this one. Every month, a dashboard will be sent to you to help you quickly monitor your site. The dashboard contains statistics, the number of clicks, etc.

If you want to add or modify the content, you can update your sitemap, or indicate it on the robots files – the pages not to crawl and send it to Google.

How to make your site functional on Google Search Console

• Go to Google Search Console;
• Add your site and subdomains to Search Console;
• Confirm your site;
• Specify if it is with or without the www;
• Add the users who will have access to the information;
• Add the country or countries that will be able to find your website;
• Reread the best practices and instructions for webmasters;
• Send a sitemap or the robots files to Google to find out which page to index if you want;
• Monitor stats and dashboard for follow-up.

Can I recreate an access level in Google Search Console?

Yes, it is easy to recreate an access if necessary and if you made a mistake except for owner access. This type of user can see, do and edit everything in your account.

What are the advantages of the Google Search Console?

Above all, the tool helps you monitor and maintain good SEO for your site by providing you with the data you need to plan and prioritize your future actions. The Google Search Console helps you understand why and which your website pages are performing well (or not) in organic results.

For this, the tool gives you 3 essential features to improve your SEO :

Search Performance Analysis

The “Search traffic” section provides information on the most frequent requests in Google search. You are thus informed about the traffic and the keywords used to find your site. To obtain detailed data on your pages and requests, you have to think carefully about choosing your metrics: Clicks, Impressions, CTR, and position.

Using this tool, you can see how your pages are behaving on specific queries. You will then use this data to improve your SEO.

The Number of Your Pages Indexed by Google

With the “Indexing Status” feature of Search Console, you can see how many URLs on your website have indexed Google in the last twelve months.

Having this indexing state is essential for the natural referencing of your web pages, you can view the pages that are blocked by the robots.txt file and the number of deleted web pages.

If this number is too unusually high or not what you expected, it is a sign that something is wrong. However, if your site is not readable by Google robots, the positioning of your site will be greatly penalized.

Resolving Crawling Errors on Your Web Pages: The Google Search Console also helps identify errors in:

Site: DNS error, server-related errors, robot.txt errors that prevent Googlebot from accessing your entire site.

URLs: 404 error, access denied, server error, untracked url: these are the specific errors that Google encounters when trying to crawl specific pages on a computer or on a phone.

These errors impact your SEO referencing because they slow down the passage of Google robots on your web pages (crawling) and consequently delay the indexing of your website on Google.

Final Words

Google provides you with many free tools to optimize your website and generate more traffic. Among them, the Search Console is essential and its main function is to improve the SEO quality of your website.

So grab all the features of the Google Search Console to boost your SEO!

** Please feel free to send us your comments and remarks below **