Any benefit of having multiple Search Console (webmaster tools) profiles for one site?

nobodyelsein · Sep 25, 2015

I have just started working with a client who for reasons they're unclear of have set up four different Search Console profiles for their website. Each profile is under the same Google Search Console account.

The live version of their site is a https

The four profiles they have set up are:

http://foo.com
http://www.foo.com
https://foo.com
https://www.foo.com

I can't see how this would do much harm to their rankings, but I also can't understand the logic of why their previous SEO bod would have set up four profiles when one will do?

Any ideas?

MPA55 · Sep 26, 2015

No need to do that. One console is enough.

nobodyelsein · Sep 26, 2015

Oh I grew, I just needed a sanity check

plausible · Sep 27, 2015

Useless, best to have one console for each website.

Zwielicht · Sep 29, 2015

I think all of you misconstrued OP's question. Nobodyelsein meant that the client has 4 separate Search Console properties for the www, non-www, http, and https versions of their site. This is actually how I have my Search Console set up and there are benefits to doing this since, as you may already know, search engines recognise the non-www and www versions of a site as separate sites. These benefits include the following:

Setting the canonical version of the URL on both versions to prevent Google from indexing one or the other.
Disavowing links pointing to the www or non-www version (you may have noticed that the Majestic website displays different backlinks for both versions of your domain)
Making sure data isn't being created for the non-primary domains.

Additionally, Google also mentions adding both properties on their support page.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/34592?hl=en

Similarly, if your site has http:// and https:// versions, you should add each as a separate site.

You don't need to verify both, but if you fancy any of these benefits, then you can.

nobodyelsein · Sep 30, 2015

Zwielicht said:
I think all of you misconstrued OP's question. Nobodyelsein meant that the client has 4 separate Search Console properties for the www, non-www, http, and https versions of their site. This is actually how I have my Search Console set up and there are benefits to doing this since, as you may already know, search engines recognise the non-www and www versions of a site as separate sites. These benefits include the following:

Setting the canonical version of the URL on both versions to prevent Google from indexing one or the other.

Disavowing links pointing to the www or non-www version (you may have noticed that the Majestic website displays different backlinks for both versions of your domain)

Making sure data isn't being created for the non-primary domains.

Additionally, Google also mentions adding both properties on their support page.
https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/34592?hl=en

You don't need to verify both, but if you fancy any of these benefits, then you can.

I've since come to the same conclusion. In fact when I was setting the preferred url for a site in Search Comsole a wee bit of helper text popping telling me I must add a profile for all variants (to prove I own them) before choosing a preferred URL.

Thank you!

Any benefit of having multiple Search Console (webmaster tools) profiles for one site?

nobodyelsein

Regular Member

MPA55

Newbie

nobodyelsein

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plausible

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Zwielicht

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nobodyelsein

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