Installing and setting up Site Kit

• Installation requirements
• Installing Site Kit
• Setting up Site Kit
• Setting up Site Kit for additional users
• Managing multiple sites with Site Kit
• Connecting additional Google services

Installation requirements

To successfully install and use Site Kit, your site must meet the following requirements:

• WordPress version 5.2+
• PHP version 5.6+
• Modern browser – Internet Explorer is not supported
• Is publicly accessible – it isn’t in maintenance or “coming soon” mode, accessible only via password, or otherwise blocked.
• Is a production environment, not a staging environment. For instructions on setting up Site Kit with a staging environment (on a separate domain, subdirectory, or subdomain), follow the Using Site Kit with a staging environment guide.
• You and/or your site server are not located in a country that is blocked by Google services – Site Kit setup requires usage of the AMP service, which is blocked by some countries.
• REST API is available – Site Kit must be able to communicate via REST API with Google services. To ensure that the REST API is available for your site, go to Tools > Site Health. If the REST API is not available, you will see a message that says “The REST API encountered an unexpected result” or “The REST API encountered an error” on the Status tab. If the REST API is working successfully, you will see a message on the Status tab under Passed tests that says “The REST API is available.”

Installing Site Kit

To install Site Kit:

• Log in to your WordPress site
• In the left navigation menu, go to Plugins > Add New
• Enter “Site Kit” in the search bar. You should see the Site Kit plugin in a search results page.
• Click Install Now, then Activate

Setting up Site Kit

NOTE: If you’re having trouble with setup, check out our Setup Troubleshooting guide.

To set up Site Kit, go to Site Kit > Dashboard.

On the initial setup screen, you can opt in to two checkboxes:

1. Connect Google Analytics as part of your setup. This will connect Google Analytics to Site Kit in the fourth and final step of the initial setup process. If you choose not to connect Google Analytics as part of initial setup, you can always connect it later by going to Site Kit > Settings > Connect More Services.
2. Help us improve Site Kit by sharing anonymous usage data. If you’d like, you can choose to share anonymized data with the Site Kit team. All collected data is treated in accordance with the Google Privacy Policy.

Click Sign In with Google to proceed with setup. You will be directed to a screen asking you sign in and choose a Google account to connect to Site Kit.

You should choose the Google account that you use for the services that you plan to connect to Site Kit, e.g. Analytics and AdSense. Click the account name to proceed.

On the next screen, you will be asked (if applicable) to provide additional permissions to allow Site Kit to access statistics from the relevant Google products connected to your Google account. This is necessary for displaying these statistics in the Site Kit dashboard.

Check the empty boxes and click Continue.

Next, you will be directed to the three-step (if you did not check the box to set up Analytics as part of your setup) or four-step (if you did check the box to set up Analytics) Site Kit setup workflow. 

The first step is for Site Kit to verify that you own the site that you are connecting to Site Kit. First, Site Kit will check to see if your site is already verified. If not, Site Kit will verify ownership by adding a verification token HTML file (or <meta> tag, if for some reason the HTML file fails) to your site and checking it against the Google Verification Service.

Click Verify to continue.

On the next step, you’ll be asked to allow your site to access your Google account data. This will allow Site Kit to display your connected modules’ metrics, e.g. Analytics, in the Site Kit dashboard within WordPress.

Click Allow to continue.

Next, you’ll be asked to add your site to Search Console if it has not already been added. This will allow Site Kit to display data in the Site Kit dashboard about how people find and use your site.

Click Set up to continue.

Site Kit is now set up! Click Go to my Dashboard to view the Site Kit dashboard. Note that it may take up to 48 hours for your dashboard to begin to populate with data.

Setting up Analytics

If you checked the box to also set up Google Analytics, you will see a fourth and final step to set up Analytics.

Click Next to continue.

On the Analytics screen, you can choose an Analytics account (associated with the Google account that you connected) to connect to Site Kit, or create a new Analytics account. 

Depending on which option you select, you may be asked to approve additional permissions and/or details regarding a new Analytics account. Once you have completed Analytics setup, you will be redirected to the Site Kit dashboard.

Setting up Site Kit for additional users

At this time, only users with the Administrator role in WordPress can use Site Kit. If an administrator has already set up Site Kit, other administrators will see this message in Site Kit > Dashboard when logged into their own WordPress user account:

Additional administrators can proceed with setup for their own WordPress user account in order to view site data in the Site Kit dashboard. Note that data will only be available if the Google account that is used for setup has permissions to access the Google services that are connected to the site, e.g. Analytics.

Managing multiple sites with Site Kit

Site Kit requires connection to a Google account. Note that at this time, you are limited to a total of 100 site connections per Google account. This is an OAuth 2.0 limitation, the authentication tool used to verify users’ Google accounts.

You can view all connected sites by going to Site Kit > Dashboard, clicking on your email address, and selecting Manage Sites.

When you connect a 101st site, the first site that you connected will be disconnected , so we recommend regularly reviewing and removing site connections that are no longer needed.

Only one Google account per WordPress user can be connected to Site Kit. For example, if you complete the initial Site Kit setup with the Google account [email protected] and later connect AdSense with [email protected], Site Kit will break the connection with [email protected] and only retain the connection with [email protected]. If [email protected] does not have access to the same services as [email protected], you may see permissions errors on the Site Kit dashboard.

To ensure that you can successfully set up and access all of your desired Google services via Site Kit, make sure that you have a single Google account that has full access permissions for all of the appropriate Google services.