Google Search Console is a free tool for webmasters, site owners, technical owners and marketers to understand, debug and improve their presence on Google search result pages.
We believe that the best way to learn about Google Search Console is to teach you with visuals and explain to you with a real site as an example. Therefore we made a video, see below about our walkthrough. Enjoy!
Installation
If you don't have a search console account, you will need to verify your website domain so you can see your data.
Note that you cannot see other websites or competitors data unless you are authorized to do so.
All you have to do is add a property and verify via DNS records OR connect your Google Analytics account to Google Search Console and the verification will be made automatically.
Reports
Overview
This is a quick dashboard to show you graphs and data from other popular reports such as performance, indexing, experience and enhancements.
Performance
This is probably the most popular report showing you the amount of times your site has appeared in Google search result pages, the amount of clicks, the click through rate (CTR) and average position in search result pages. Note that this is for organic traffic not google paid ads.
In addition to seeing a graph and table of data, you will be able to sort the data by: Queries/search terms, Pages, Countries, Devices, Search Appearance and by Date
NOTE: you can export your data as well.
URL Inspection
This is a report to specify a specific page by url and get data from Google about the page including has it been read by Google, has it been indexed, how was it found by Google, and can it be visited and indexed.
TIP: If you have a page that is live and not indexed by Google you can add it via the URL inspection tool and click on "request indexing" to help expedite the process.
Pages
This report will show to you the amount and specific pages that Google has indexed (listed in Google) and the amount that are not indexed or listed in Google.
TIP: You can use this report to see why your pages are not indexed and work to fix them.
Sitemaps
This is where you will submit a list of all of your pages to Google so Google can read these pages and index them quicker.
Most websites use the URL domain/sitemap.xml . for example One Scales uses https://onescales.com/sitemap.xml
Removals
This is where you can request specific pages to be removed from Google result pages. You will use this usually only in emergency cases.
Note that there are other options including robots.txt, meta robots, redirects, deleting pages and more and should only be used if you know what you're doing.
Page Experience
This report shows how Google sees your website pages from a user experience. This includes security of your https and site speed loading of your webpages.
The page separates into 2 parts: Core Web Vitals for experience and HTTPS for secure transmission of your data to your visitor.
Enhancements
This report shows you the enhancements that you have provided to Google via structured data. Structured data simply put is a way for you to showcase to Google what your web pages are about and specifics via a very structured manner. This helps the search engines understand your content better and enhance the search engine result pages.
Examples include: A product page and pricing, a blog article, a business address, a review and more.
Security & Manual Actions
These 2 reports will let you know if your web site was hacked and if you have penalties in Google (meaning you are banned from google or receive less visibility) due to your website spamming Google and the internet.
Links
This report will showcase to you the number of links and urls of pages that get linked to from your website and from external websites. This is especially helpful for your SEO marketers.
Settings
This page is where you can define your settings about Search Console including who has access to view, sharing data with Google Analytics and more.
Important Links
- Google Search Console: https://search.google.com/search-console/about
- Intro to Robots.txt: https://onescales.com/blogs/main/robots-txt-intro
- Connecting Search Console to Google Analytics: https://onescales.com/blogs/main/search-console-reports-in-ga4
