Google has officially launched Domain Property in Google Search Console the day after they announced the closure of the Property Sets feature. Overall, the concept behind Domain Property is similar to Property Set, it lets you combine multiple properties in Search Console into one, to see an aggregate view of the data.
We first spotted Google testing this last November and then it went missing in January - so we were unsure if Google gave up on the idea or not. Well, I guess they didn't give up on it.
Google explains domain properties are "a way of verifying and seeing the data from Google Search for a whole domain." So the http, https, www, mobile domain, etc can all be combined into one property for aggregate viewing.
Google supports the following URLs to combine here:
| This domain... | includes these URLs. |
|---|---|
| example.com |
|
| m.example.com |
|
| example.co.cn |
|
To set it u, Google said if you already have DNS verification set up, Search Console will automatically create new domain properties for you over the next few weeks, with data over all reports. Otherwise, to add a new domain property, go to the property selector, add a new domain property, and use DNS verification.We recommend using domain properties where possible going forward.
It might not be fully live yet, so give it some time.
It's either already live or will be soon everywhere (sometimes these roll-outs take a little bit of time). You should see the options for domain / URL when you use "Add property" in the new Search Console.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) February 27, 2019
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update: seeing the chatter about this, I completely agree, DNS verification to make this happen can be confusing and also a bit dangerous but I get why Google did it. Can Google also give a manual way to do this?
So the new domain properties in GSC are set up automatically if you have DNS verification, but really, how many of you have that set up? I don't think I've ever verified a domain in GSC this way. @JohnMu, can we currently manually set this up? Or is that coming soon?
— Marie Haynes (@Marie_Haynes) February 27, 2019
Update 2: When you click add property now, you get these options:
When you select the domain property option, it gives you instructions on how to add the DNS verification method.
OK, it took me about 4 minutes to set up DNS verification when setting up a domain property. Will it confuse some people? You bet. Is it smart to do? Yes, on multiple levels. Note, it can take a few minutes for the DNS record to propagate. So you might fail at first. See below: pic.twitter.com/IAfMUx9bOP
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) February 27, 2019
