Skip to main content
OCLC Support

Analytics and SEO

Find information about using Google Analytics and learn how to enable Google Site Verification using the Analytics & SEO section of the Website Configuration tool.

Use the Tools option to enable Google Analytics, allow Google Search Console to verify ownership of your site, enter a Public URL, and enable XML Sitemaps.

This section is for Global Settings only.

Google Analytics

For information on how to configure and use Google Analytics, see Use Google Analytics 4 in CONTENTdm.

SEO

CONTENTdm includes support for Google Search Console site verification. Google Search Console is used to increase traffic to your CONTENTdm site. For information on search engine optimization (SEO) in general and Google Search Console in particular, please see Google's SEO Starter Guide and Search Console Help.  

This configuration enables you to:

  • Enter a Google site verification ID. This creates a meta tag that Google uses to verify ownership of your site.
  • Enter a Public URL for your site. 
  • Enable XML Sitemaps.

Enable Google Site Verification

  1. Navigate to the Google Search Console and click Start now.  
  2. Sign in with your Google account.
  3. Put in your site's URL and click ADD PROPERTY.  
  4. A popup window will ask you to Verify ownership.  Under Other verification methods, select HTML tag.  This will show you an HTML snippet that includes a string of Verification ID in the content property.  
    • For example: Kxpq7euocy2lsa6ut00mPnSku3CWRXvahNca6rhjSDI.  Do not copy the "content=" or the quotation marks.
  5. Go to the CONTENTdm Website Configuration Tool and select the Global tab.
  6. From the left-side menu, select Analytics & SEOSEO.
  7. Select the Enable Google Site Verification box.
  8. Paste the Verification ID you copied into the Google Site Verification ID input box.
  9. Save and Publish.
  10. Return to Google Search Console and click VERIFY under the HTML tag method.  You should now be verified. 

Enter a Public URL and Enable XML Sitemaps

  1. Open Website Configuration Tool and select the Global Settings tab.
  2. From the left-side menu, select Analytics & SEOSEO.
  3. In the Public URL box, enter the URL that your end-users use to reach your CONTENTdm digital collections. You must enter a Public URL in order to use the XML Sitemaps feature.
  4. Select the Enable XML Sitemaps box.
    • Enabling XML Sitemaps will create the Sitemap file for your site and add a line to your robots.txt file so that search engines know where to look for the Sitemap.
  5. Click Save, then choose to Preview or Publish.

 Note: Sitemaps will be created within a week of when you enable XML Sitemaps.  It is updated once a week thereafter. For large sites, it can take several hours to generate Sitemaps.