How to add a WordPress or Shopify site to Google Search Console

Both platforms follow one pattern: add a property, verify ownership, then submit the sitemap the platform already generates. What changes is where the verification tag goes and which property type you choose. On WordPress, Site Kit can add and verify the property for you, or you paste an HTML tag into Yoast. On Shopify, you paste the tag into theme.liquid or add a DNS TXT record, then submit sitemap.xml. Platform menus change, so treat the vendor’s current page as the authority for the clicks and this page as the logic. Google’s own methods are on its verify ownership page.

WordPress: Site Kit or Yoast

With Site Kit by Google, you install and activate the plugin, connect your Google account and follow the setup. The site is added to Search Console automatically: Site Kit connects an existing property or creates a URL-prefix one, verifies through a virtual HTML file first, falls back to an HTML tag, and then shows Search Console data on the WordPress dashboard.

With Yoast SEO, choose a URL prefix property in Search Console and the HTML tag method, copy the meta tag, and paste it in Yoast SEO under Settings, Site connections, in the Google field. Save, then click Verify in Search Console (Yoast’s guide). If the site is already verified, you can ignore that field.

Google notes that a CMS such as WordPress may already have generated a sitemap, so read its address from your SEO plugin’s settings before you submit anything (build and submit a sitemap).

Shopify: the tag and the sitemap

Add the store address as a URL prefix property and choose the HTML tag method. Copy the meta tag and paste it on a blank line directly below the opening head tag in theme.liquid, save the theme and click Verify. Shopify’s guide also mentions a DNS TXT record as an alternative.

Shopify generates sitemap.xml automatically at the root of the store’s domain, with links to separate sitemaps for products, collections, blogs and pages, and updates it as you add content. Enter sitemap.xml in the Sitemaps report and submit it (Shopify’s sitemap guide). Make sure you submit it under the property that matches the domain the store really uses. The general mechanics of sitemaps are in the sitemap article.

When verification breaks

The usual cause is a theme or plugin change: the tag lived in the old theme or plugin and left with it. Google advises adding more than one verification method so a single change does not cost you access, and that is worth doing right after the first success. Do not remove the tag later, and give data a few days to appear.

Hosting platforms sometimes make the file and tag methods impossible, and Google says as much. In that case use your domain name provider or another method from the verification page. A Domain property can be verified only through the domain name provider; Yoast’s guide uses a URL prefix property, while Site Kit’s documentation also names Domain properties.

After verification

Once the property exists and you have access to it, sign in to SEOKit with the same Google account and it appears in your property list. Nothing needs to be installed on WordPress or Shopify. For the steps that apply to any site, see adding a site and verifying ownership, and for how SEOKit uses your properties, the workspace and properties documentation.

Go further

FAQ: add a site and verify ownership: The general steps for any site. FAQ: how to create and submit a sitemap: Formats, limits and statuses. Docs: workspace and properties: Connecting SEOKit to your properties.