Set up Google Search Console for your charity site
Organizational setupTools · about 15 min · Charity owners and the volunteer maintaining the website
Google Search Console is Google’s free window into how your site performs in search: what queries bring people in, which pages are indexed, and what’s broken.
Verifying the whole domain requires adding a DNS record — and since FFC manages your DNS in Cloudflare, that part is a support ticket, not something you do yourself.
Verify the domain — and let FFC place the DNS record
Choose the Domain property type so all versions of the site (www and not, http and https) are covered by one verification. The DNS TXT record it requires lives in Cloudflare, where FFC manages your domain — send the record value to FFC and never try to change nameservers or DNS yourself.
- 1
Add a Domain property
Go to search.google.com/search-console, sign in with the charity’s Google account, and choose Add property → Domain. Enter the bare domain (e.g. yourcharity.org).
- 2
Send the TXT record to FFC
Search Console shows a TXT record value (starts with google-site-verification=). Copy it and send it to FFC in a support ticket — an FFC volunteer adds it to your DNS in Cloudflare, usually the same day.
Once it’s added, come back and click Verify. DNS can take up to an hour to propagate, so a first failed attempt just means “try again later.”
Remember the Cloudflare rule: your domain’s DNS lives in the FFC Cloudflare account. You send record values to FFC; you don’t add them yourself.
- 3
Submit the sitemap
In Sitemaps, submit your sitemap URL (usually yourcharity.org/sitemap.xml — FFC-built sites generate one automatically). This tells Google exactly what to index.
- 4
Add teammates and check in monthly
Under Settings → Users and permissions, add helpers by their own Google account emails — individual access, never a shared login.
Check the Performance and Pages (indexing) reports monthly to spot drops or errors early.
Common questions
Why does verification need a DNS record I can’t add myself?
Domain-level verification proves you control the domain, and that proof lives in DNS — which for FFC charities is managed in the FFC Cloudflare account. Send the TXT value to FFC via support ticket; a volunteer places it for you, then you click Verify.
Search Console or Google Analytics — don’t we already have analytics?
They answer different questions. Search Console shows how Google sees and ranks your site (queries, indexing, errors) before anyone clicks; Analytics shows what visitors do after they arrive. Run both.
Next setup guides
Stuck on any step? Text Clarke Moyer at (520) 222-8104 — every step is meant to be simple, so if something doesn't match what you see, ask.