“Help me, help you.” It was one of the most memorable lines from the movie Jerry Maguire. In the scene, Tom Cruise’s character (a desperate pro sports agent with only one client) is trying to explain to his client, Cuba Gooding Jr’s character (an entitled football player in contract negotiations), that he’s working in his client’s best interest. But he needs his client to be cooperative. Cruise desperately repeats, “Help me, help you!” making hand gestures and using body language to drive his point home. He’s fully exasperated, and suddenly there’s a brief moment of silence… followed by Gooding Jr’s uncontrolled laughter. Cruise leaves the scene, head down, dejected.
I imagine this is how the team at Google must feel when over 60% of webmasters do not receive a notification their site was hacked. Why? Simply because they’re not verified in Google Search Console (GSC).
Download a free whitepaper about Google Search Console goodies that make your website more effective. See box to your right —>
A Secret That Shouldn’t Be
I wasn’t surprised to find the portion of webmasters failing to verify their sites was so high. When we begin working with a new client, they rarely have GSC verification. It doesn’t matter if it’s a large and well branded business, or a company run by sophisticated marketers. The majority either don’t have verification, or dropped the code when they moved servers or migrated their website. However, I was shocked to learn 2016 saw a 32% increase in the number of hacked sites as compared to 2015. Are hackers getting smarter? Or are webmasters not securing their sites? I don’t know, but according to Google, this trend won’t slow down in the near future.
If you own or manage a website we recommend you register for Search Console as it’s the only line of communication you have with Google. This is your chance to help Google, help you.
What Is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console is a free service where you learn how your website is perceived by Google. Everything from a website’s health to how well it indexes across mobile or desktop to actual queries users enter into search and the landing pages they experience upon visiting. You can even fix errors, confirm your robots.txt file, and submit a sitemap.
When Google believes your site has been hacked or has malware on it, they use GSC to inform you. When they see you collected data from your website’s visitors but not in a secure manner, they’ll tell you. From Google’s point of view, a website that has security issues of any kind is one that presents danger to users. Any number of unresolved issues may result in your website no longer ranking in search results.
If you’ve worked hard to get your website to the top of Google rankings for a keyword term or phrase — then you would be wise to learn more about how Search Console keeps you informed of issues impacting your site’s organic search performance.
Download Free Whitepaper
For a more details, periscopeUP’s technical lead, Jacob Evans, penned the white paper: Using Search Console for Technical SEO. In includes details on everything from setup to analysis of information you’ll find about your website. It’s free, and we know you’ll find it incredibly valuable.
Download My Free Whitepaper:Â Using Search Console for Technical SEO. See box to your right —>
