Sean Walsh
Sean is a Director at Intelligency heading up our digital marketing and client services operations. Sean has 15+ years experiencing working both in-house and agency with brands including Lloyds, Alstom, Hitachi, Lufthansa, Viaplay, DFDS Seaways and Mercedes-Benz.
It is increasingly common for websites to store images, videos, and other media assets on cloud platforms such as AWS, Google Cloud, or Azure. This is convenient and scalable, but it also creates a risk: Google Search Console may not track those files unless the cloud hosting is verified.
Why this matters
John Mueller from Google issued a reminder that any third-party cloud host used to store site content should be added and verified in Search Console. Without verification, marketers and SEO teams may be missing information about:
- Indexing and crawl issues
- Performance data
- Malware or Safe Browsing alerts
If Google cannot associate the cloud-hosted files with your domain, it cannot provide insight into how they appear and perform in search results.
How to fix it
To bring cloud-hosted content into Search Console reporting, Google recommends setting up a hostname on your own domain, such as images.yoursite.com or content.yoursite.com. This hostname can point to your cloud storage bucket through a DNS CNAME record. Once that is done, the host can be verified in Search Console using DNS verification, and you will be able to see data for those files within the same Search Console property as your main site.
This is usually a job for a developer or IT administrator. It requires access to domain DNS settings, but not code changes to the files themselves.
What happens next
After the CNAME is set up, all internal links across the website need to be updated so they point to the new hostname. Larger websites may need to run a search-and-replace across templates or sections of the site, followed by a crawl to ensure everything has updated correctly. Users should only be able to access the content through the new hostname.
If you are moving a large number of image URLs, be aware that Google Images can take longer to recalibrate. Image search traffic might fluctuate at first because Google must recrawl and reprocess the new URLs. This is temporary, and performance will stabilise once Google finishes updating.
A useful bonus
Using your own hostname to serve cloud-hosted content also makes future migrations far easier. If you decide to switch cloud providers later, you can redirect or repoint the CNAME record without losing search visibility. Because the content sits under your domain rather than the provider’s domain, you remain in full control.
Why marketers should check this
Many digital marketing teams assume Search Console only tracks web pages, but images, videos, PDF files, and other hosted assets play a major role in search performance. If some of your most valuable content lives off-site, you may not be receiving reports that could identify issues early or explain changes in organic performance.
A simple verification step can unlock more data, protect traffic, and give your SEO team better visibility. If your business uses cloud services for content hosting, it is worth asking your developer or IT team whether those hosts have been added and verified in Search Console. If not, the fix is straightforward and has long-term benefits.
