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Adding Google Analytics, and why my site would not show up on Google

13 Sep 2026 · how-to

Two things in this post. First, how I added Google Analytics so I can see if anyone is actually visiting. Second, something I got wrong about search, and what I found out when I looked into it.

Part one: the site did not appear on Google

After deploying wowsb ship tool, I searched the site name on Google. Nothing. It did not show up at all.

Then I tried a different spelling and it worked. Searching "wowsblitz ship tool" found it, but searching "wowsb ship tool" did not.

My first thought was that I needed more words in the meta tags. So I looked into it, and found out that is mostly wrong.

What I learned about meta tags

I always thought the keywords meta tag was the thing that told Google what your site is about. It is not. Google stopped using it years ago, because people filled it with junk. Putting keywords in there does nothing for your ranking.

The tags that do still matter are the title and the description. Those show in the search result and Google does read them. But even those are not what decides whether you appear at all.

The real reason

The actual reason a new site does not show up is usually one of these:

  • Nobody links to it yet. Google trusts pages that other sites point at. A brand new site has no links, so Google has no reason to think it matters.
  • It is not indexed yet. Google has to find and store your page before it can show it. For a new site that takes time.
  • It is a free subdomain. My site is on netlify.app, which works fine, but it has no history behind it.

So "wowsblitz" worked and "wowsb" did not simply because the word wowsblitz was already written in my description text somewhere, and the other spelling was not. Google was matching the exact word it could find. That is a text match, not a real ranking.

What I changed

  • Put both spellings into the visible text on the page, not just the hidden tags. The heading and the sentence under it now say WoWSB and wowsblitz and World of Warships Blitz. Text people can actually see counts more than hidden tags.
  • Renamed the site to WoWSB Ship Tool. Capitals do not affect search at all, Google is not case sensitive. It was purely so the name looks right.
  • Added structured data. It is a small block of code in the page that tells Google the site name and what game it is about, in a way it can read directly.

How to check if you are even indexed

  • Go to Google Search Console and pick your site.
  • Use the search bar at the top to enter your own URL.
  • It tells you if the page is on Google or not.
  • If it is not, click Request Indexing. That asks Google to look at it.

If it says the page is not indexed, that is your problem, not your meta tags. Fix that first.

Part two: adding Google Analytics

I also wanted to see traffic, so I set up Google Analytics. Here is the whole process.

Make the account and the stream

  • Go to analytics.google.com and sign in.
  • Create an account, then a property. I named mine after the site.
  • Set your timezone and currency. I used Malaysia and MYR.
  • When it asks for a platform, pick Web.
  • Enter your site URL and a stream name.

When that is done, Google gives you a Measurement ID. It looks like this:

G-XXXXXXXXXX

It sits in the top right of the stream page. You need this ID, the rest of the setup is built around it.

Put the code in your page

Google shows you a block of code to paste. Put it inside the <head> of your page, with your own ID in the two places marked:

<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-XXXXXXXXXX"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){ dataLayer.push(arguments); }
  gtag('js', new Date());
  gtag('config', 'G-XXXXXXXXXX');
</script>

You have to paste it in twice, once in the script link and once in the config line. Both need to be your ID. If one is wrong it will not track.

Check that it actually works

  • Upload the page to your host.
  • Open your live site in one tab.
  • Open Analytics in another tab and go to Reports, then Realtime.
  • You should see yourself appear as 1 user within about half a minute.

If Realtime stays empty, the code is not right. That is the fastest way to test it.

Tracking more than visits

Page views alone tell you how many people came. They do not tell you what they did. So I added a few small events on top:

  • open_ship when someone opens a ship's stats.
  • open_equipment when someone opens an equipment slot.
  • save_loadout and load_loadout for the saved builds.
  • start_compare when someone uses the compare view.
  • use_filter when someone uses a filter.

In Analytics these show up under Engagement, then Events. This is the part I actually care about. It tells me which features people use and which ones nobody touches. If nobody uses compare, I should stop building on it.

Notes to myself

  • Analytics takes a day or so before the normal reports fill in. Realtime works right away, the rest is slower.
  • Do not panic if a brand new site does not show on Google. It can take weeks. The important thing is to check whether it is indexed at all, then get some links pointing at it.
  • The keywords meta tag is basically dead. I still filled mine in, but I am not expecting it to do anything.

The site is at wowsbshiptool.netlify.app.

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