Key takeaways
- Google Search Console is a free Google tool that shows how your site appears in Google Search: the searches you show up for, the clicks you get, and which pages Google has indexed.
- A Domain property covers every version of your site and is verified with a DNS record. Google says data should begin to appear within a few days.
- The Performance report gives you four numbers: clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position. It is the closest thing to a list of what people typed before they found you.
- Traffic from AI Overviews and AI Mode is counted in the Performance report under the Web search type. There is no separate AI report.
- Requesting indexing and submitting a sitemap help Google find pages, but Google says neither guarantees a page will be indexed.
What is Google Search Console?
Search Console is Google’s free tool for site owners. Google Analytics tells you what people do once they arrive. Search Console tells you what happened before that: which searches showed your site, how often people clicked, and whether Google can find and index your pages.
If you only check one marketing report a month, this is a strong candidate, because it shows real demand in your market in your customers’ own words.
Set it up
Google offers two kinds of property (Add a website property):
- Domain property: covers every version of your site, with and without www, http and https, and all subdomains. It is verified by adding a DNS record with your domain provider.
- URL-prefix property: covers only addresses that start with the exact prefix you enter, so https://example.com/ does not include http:// or www. It offers more ways to verify, such as an HTML file or tag.
Most businesses should use a Domain property. Once verified, Google says data should begin to appear in a few days.
The Performance report
This is where you will spend most of your time. Google’s Performance report guide defines the four numbers:
- Clicks: how many times someone clicked through to your site from Google Search.
- Impressions: how many times your site appeared in results.
- CTR: clicks divided by impressions.
- Average position: where your site ranked on average, counting the topmost result from your site.
The report shows the past three months by default. You can switch the date range and break the data down by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date. The newest data can be preliminary and change over the next few hours.
Three ways business owners use it
- Find near misses. Sort queries by impressions and look for searches where you sit in positions 5 to 20. Those are often the quickest pages to improve.
- Fix low click-through. A page with many impressions and few clicks may need a clearer title and description.
- Spot new demand. Queries you never targeted show what buyers are asking. Each one is a possible page, section or FAQ.
Search results vary by person and place, so a query in the report may not show your site when you search it yourself. Trust the report over your own searches.
AI Overviews and AI Mode
Google’s page on AI features and your website says sites shown in AI features are included in the overall search traffic in Search Console, reported in the Performance report under the Web search type. There is no separate filter for AI Overviews, so watch for longer, question-style queries. Our guide to answer engine optimization covers how to earn those mentions.
The Page indexing report
This report shows which of your pages Google has indexed and why others are not. Google says it does not index all pages across the web, and most sites have a few unindexed pages. What matters is that your important pages are indexed. Common statuses:
- Discovered, currently not indexed: Google knows the page exists but has not crawled it yet.
- Crawled, currently not indexed: Google crawled the page and chose not to index it for now. This is common and not always a problem.
- Duplicate without user-selected canonical: Google picked another URL as the main version.
- Page with redirect: the URL redirects elsewhere. Usually fine.
- URL marked noindex: the page asks not to be indexed. Check that this is on purpose.
After a fix, you can ask Google to validate it. Google says validation typically takes up to about two weeks.
URL Inspection and requesting indexing
Paste any page address into the bar at the top to see whether it is on Google. A live test checks the current version of the page. If the page is indexable, you can request indexing. Google’s URL Inspection guide is clear that a request does not guarantee the page will be indexed, and that there is a daily limit on requests for each property. Save requests for new or important pages.
Sitemaps
A sitemap lists the pages you want Google to find. Submit its address in the Sitemaps report and check that the status reads Success (Manage your sitemaps). Google notes that a small, well-linked site of about 500 pages or fewer may not need one, but most website platforms create one automatically and it does no harm to submit it.
A monthly routine
- Check clicks and impressions against last month and the same month last year.
- Review the top 25 queries and note any new ones.
- Pick two near-miss pages to improve.
- Check the Page indexing report for important pages that are not indexed.
- Inspect any page you published or changed, and request indexing if needed.
Where to get help
We set up Search Console, read it with you and turn it into a list of fixes as part of our SEO and analytics and reporting work.