Know What Google (and Bing) Thinks of Your Content
Here’s the thing: you publish a new post or product page, you optimize it, you’re proud of it — and then you wait. Is it indexed? Did Google even notice it? Unless you want to copy-paste URLs into Search Console one by one (nobody has time for that), you’re mostly in the dark.
HHG Google Search Console puts that answer right where you already work — inside your WordPress admin. Next to every post, page, and product, you’ll see a little green checkmark telling you “yep, Google has this one.” Or a red X saying “not yet, buddy.” No separate dashboards. No manual lookups. It just shows up.
What It Actually Does
- Index status columns in your post list. One column for Google, one for Bing. Glance at your Posts, Pages, or Products list and instantly see what’s indexed and what’s not.
- Automatic background checks. It runs on a schedule (every hour for index checks, daily for analytics) using WordPress Cron. You set it, you forget it.
- One-click manual checks. See a URL you just published? Click the status badge to re-check it on the spot. Or select a bunch and bulk-check them from the dropdown.
- Analytics numbers right there. For Google, you also get impressions, clicks, and CTR shown below the index status. No need to jump into Search Console just to see if a page is getting traction.
- Filter and export. Filter your content list to show only “Not Indexed” items, then export them as a CSV. Great for auditing.
- Multi-language aware. Running Polylang or TranslatePress? It tracks index status for each language variant separately and shows little colored pills so you know which translation is indexed.
- Taxonomy support. Categories, product categories, custom taxonomies — their archive pages get checked too.
Why Both Google and Bing?
Google is the obvious one. But Bing powers Copilot, DuckDuckGo, Yahoo, and a surprising chunk of voice search results. If you’re ignoring Bing, you’re leaving traffic on the table — and Bing Webmaster Tools is actually pretty good. This plugin gives you both, side by side. You can enable or disable Bing independently, so if you only care about Google, that’s fine too.
How It Works (The Short Version)
- You paste in your Google Service Account JSON key (don’t worry, it stays on your server) and optionally a Bing API key.
- Pick which post types to monitor — posts, pages, products, whatever.
- The plugin starts checking URLs in batches, respecting API quotas so you don’t hit rate limits.
- Results show up as colored badges in your admin list views.
- Every hour it re-checks anything that wasn’t indexed yet plus recently published content.
No external services. No third-party API middlemen. Your URLs go directly from your server to Google’s and Bing’s APIs. Your credentials stay in your WordPress database and nowhere else.
What You’ll Need
- For Google: A Google Cloud project with the Search Console API enabled, a Service Account, and its JSON key. (Takes about 5 minutes to set up. The plugin’s settings page walks you through it.)
- For Bing (optional): A Bing Webmaster Tools account with your site verified, plus an API key from the settings page.
- WordPress 5.8 or newer, PHP 7.4 or newer.
Real Talk
I built this because I was tired of the “publish and pray” routine. I run WooCommerce stores and content sites, and I wanted to know — without opening another tab — whether my product pages were actually showing up in search results. The existing solutions either cost money, require third-party services, or only do Google. This one’s free, self-contained, and does both search engines.
It won’t magically get you indexed faster. That’s still up to the search engines. But it will tell you exactly where you stand, which URLs need attention, and whether your latest content is getting picked up. That alone saves me hours every week.
Get It
The plugin is available on the WordPress.org Plugin Directory. Free, GPL-licensed, no upsells. If you find it useful, leave a review — it helps more people discover it.
Got questions or running into issues? Check the support forum or the FAQ tab on the plugin page.