Wednesday, February 22, 2023
Starting today, we’re updating Search
Console’s user and permissions to incorporate functionality related to ownership and user management.
Historically, these functionalities were only available in the previous Webmaster Tools experience.
The Webmaster verification tool has served our community well over the years. This launch takes us a
step closer towards our goal of migrating
functionality to Search Console, ensuring our users have a better, faster, and modernized experience.
New user management features in Search Console
The functionalities added to Search Console’s user and permissions management include:
- Distinguishing between verified and delegated owners
- Easier, immediate removal of verified owners (no need to remove their ownership token)
- Ability to change delegated owners’ permissions levels (owner, full, restricted)
- Ability to see your property’s verification tokens for all current and previous users and specifically
see tokens leftover by previous owners - Ownership events history
Best practices
As a reminder, here are some best practices for managing user permissions in Search Console.
First, grant users only the permission
level that they need to do their work. You can change permission levels for non-verified owners
with the More actions menu. Make sure to revoke or change permission levels from users
who no longer work on a property, and regularly audit and update permissions through the
users and permissions page in Search Console.
When removing a previously verified owner, be sure to remove
all verification tokens for that user. This is one of the updates we’re rolling out today, you
can now review the leftover ownership tokens so that removed owners cannot regain access to the property.
Remember that if you just want to share a specific Search Console report on a one-off basis, you can always
click Share link on that page instead of adding users to Search Console.
We will be sunsetting the standalone Webmaster Central verification tool in the coming months. As always,
we love to hear feedback from our users. You can use the feedback form within Search Console or the
help forums
to ask questions or submit feedback.