Does not work with Google. Free version might be useless?

My unfamiliarity with this field may make this my fault, but after following the instructions to the best of my understanding, I was unable to enable the Google Instant Indexing API to request indexing.

I feel like the instructions need additional clarity, and they are otherwise filled with grammatical errors. The lack of feedback within the plugin itself does not inspire confidence in myself, either.

To give some examples, I was following the “Integrating WordPress with Google Search API” article first and reached this section: “Save the content of the JSON file that was downloaded to your computer in the “Google JSON Key” textarea.” What does that mean? What content? There is no way on the Google API page to upload a .JSON file. Am I supposed to open the .JSON file with something? With what? I just guessed to open it with Chrome, and I copied and pasted everything into the “Google JSON Key” field.

I clicked save, and… did it work? There’s no notification telling me that I entered the correct or incorrect information. I look around to see a list of my pages where I can request indexing, and find nothing. My conclusion is that I must have entered the wrong text. Again, I can only guess at what text CrawlWP actually wants.

I put it off for now. I thought that maybe I’m not seeing results because of not having my Google Verification Code in the “Core” tab set. I then follow the “How to Verify Your Website with Google Search Console” article. There’s an immediate snag: I have already claimed my domain as a property, and at that time I used my domain name provider as the verification method. What am I expected to do in this case? The article doesn’t say anything. Do I delete the property and claim it all over again so that I can use a different verification method? That could cause a ton of problems, so I assume not. I would think I could choose multiple verification methods for one property, but for whatever reason, Google does not allow this. “Ownership verification” under “settings” only has a “learn more” link. There are no options to use different methods for already-verified properties. I tried to find if there was any way I could get the HTML tag CrawlWP wanted, but every search result assumes you’re verifying a property for the first time.

After blindly messing around for a while further, I threw my hands up. I could not find any indication if I was doing anything correctly, if CrawlWP was doing anything for my site, or what to do for the issues I mentioned above. While troubleshooting, I navigated to the plug-in’s “SEO Indexing” and “SEO Stats” tabs, only to have the premium version advertised to me each time. Do I need the premium version to do any index requests with Google? If that’s the case, then why is the free version even allowing me to do setup for it? Those tabs should be disabled with an explanation that they have no functionality for the free version.

And if I need the premium version, then what is the free version even doing for me? Why even have it? I’m not seeing statistics on my site, a way to submit indexing, or anything. It’s completely empty, and I don’t even know if it’s because I’m doing something wrong or because I don’t have premium. Nothing is communicated well.

Sorry for the lengthy rant and any personal incompetence, but I feel like at least some of what I’m asking for is reasonable user feedback that most UIs would have. The reviews for this plug-in are entirely positive with the exception of one 3-star rating where two other users also claimed to be struggling with Google integration. It appears as though they were never helped. If nothing else, I hope this review makes other confused users feel like they’re not alone.