What does Google Search Console do?
Search Console helps you monitor, maintain and fix your site’s presence in Google Search. Google describes its main uses as:
- Confirming that Google can find and crawl your site.
- Fixing indexing problems and asking Google to re-index updated pages.
- Seeing search traffic data: impressions, clicks, CTR and average position.
- Getting alerts about indexing, spam or security issues.
- Seeing which sites link to yours.
Which reports matter most?
The Performance report is where most SEO work starts. It shows clicks, impressions, CTR and average position, and lets you break them down by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date.
The Page indexing report shows which pages are indexed and why others are not. The URL Inspection tool checks a single page and lets you request indexing after an update.
How do you set up Search Console?
- 1Sign in to Search Console with a Google account.
- 2Add a property, either a whole domain or a URL prefix.
- 3Verify ownership, for example with a DNS record or an HTML file.
- 4Submit your XML sitemap so Google can find your pages.
- 5Wait for data to build up. The Performance report fills in over the following days.
What can you learn from a single query?
Filtering the Performance report to one query shows how a page is doing for it.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Query | sourdough starter not rising |
| Clicks (3 months) | 310 |
| Impressions (3 months) | 9,800 |
| CTR | 3.2% |
| Average position | 6.8 |
Frequently asked questions
Is Google Search Console free?
Yes. It is free to use. You do not need it to appear in Google, but it is the only place to see Google’s own data on how your site performs there.
How is Search Console different from Google Analytics?
Search Console shows what happens in Google Search before someone reaches your site, such as impressions and rankings. Analytics shows what visitors do once they arrive, from every source.
Why is the newest data in Search Console different later?
The most recent data is preliminary and still being collected. Google marks it on the chart and it can change over the next few hours.
Does requesting indexing guarantee a page is indexed?
No. Google says a request does not guarantee indexing. The page still has to be unique, of sufficient quality and free of issues such as manual actions.