Google Search Console stands as an essential ally in the realm of SEO, furnishing invaluable insights into a website’s or page’s organic performance. Gaining an understanding of user search behavior, evaluating site performance across search engines, and receiving actionable recommendations for enhancement constitute pivotal pillars of effective SEO strategies.
Formerly dubbed Google Webmaster Tools, Google Search Console represents the cornerstone of SEO arsenal, revered by practitioners for its comprehensive insights and diagnostic capabilities. It remains a staple tool utilized by SEO professionals worldwide, serving as a beacon of guidance for optimizing technical health and driving organic growth.
What Is Google Search Console (GSC)?
Google Search Console, commonly referred to as GSC, emerges as a complimentary offering from Google, enabling website owners to oversee the holistic well-being and performance of their sites by leveraging Google’s proprietary data.
Amidst its multifaceted functionality, GSC offers an array of insightful reports, encompassing:
- Impressions and Clicks,
- Indexation status,
- Inbound links,
- Manual Actions,
- Core Web Vitals (CWV).
Furthermore, GSC empowers site owners to undertake proactive measures concerning their sites, such as:
- Submission of sitemaps,
- Removal of URLs from indexing,
- Inspection of URLs to identify potential indexing anomalies.
Moreover, GSC diligently dispatches email notifications to verified owners and users, highlighting any instances of crawl errors, accessibility issues, or performance discrepancies.
Furthermore, although the data availability window for GSC has been extended from a mere 3 months to a generous span of 16 months, data collection commences only subsequent to the verification of ownership for the relevant property.
How To Get Started With GSC
In order to initiate your journey with Google Search Console, you will require a functional Google account, which can be a Gmail account or an email associated with Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) for business. Additionally, you must possess the capability to incorporate code into your website or modify the domain name servers in collaboration with your hosting provider.
In this section, we’ll cover the following:
- How to verify site ownership in GSC.
- How to add a sitemap to GSC.
- Setting owners, users, and permissions.
- Dimensions and metrics.
How To Verify Ownership
Given the valuable insights accessible through Google Search Console (GSC), which could be advantageous to your competitors, Google mandates site owners to complete one of several verification procedures.
- Navigate to the Google Search Console page.
- Click on the “Start Now” button.
- Choose the type of property you wish to verify.
Two different types of properties you can verify in GSC: Domain and URL Prefix.
This is the property type you should choose if this is your first time using GSC to verify your domain. It will set up verification for all subdomains, SSL patterns (http:// or https://), and subfolders on your website.
For this kind of property, there are two forms of verification: CNAME and TXT. To make changes to your site’s DNS records, you or your site engineer will need to have access.
For desired TXT verifications:
- In the TXT record field, copy the content.
- For your domain (often your hosting company), create a new DNS record with the Type set to TXT.
- Copy and paste the GSC verification TXT into the Record area.
- Keep the Record.
- Please be patient while your DNS updates.
- To confirm that you have added the TXT record to your DNS, click Verify in GSC.
- If the change cannot be verified right away, you can select Verify Later. Replication of this modification may take a few minutes to several days.
For CNAME verifications:
- In the Name box of a new CNAME record in your site’s DNS settings, copy and paste the CNAME label.
- In the Record field of your DNS settings, copy the content of the CNAME Destination/Target.
- Keep the Record.
- Please be patient while your DNS updates.
- To confirm that you have added the CNAME record to your DNS, click Verify in GSC.
- If the change cannot be verified right away, you can select Verify Later. Replication of this modification may take a few minutes to several days.
Once you have verified your domain, you can verify additional properties for this domain using the URL Prefix property type.
URL Prefix
The URL Prefix verification allows you to verify:
- http:// and https:// separately (if you haven’t canonicalized your URLs).
- Subdomains, such as m.domain.com or community.domain.com.
- Subdirectories, such as www.domain.com/products or www.domain.com/articles.
- Any prefix with a set of URLs that follow that specific pattern.
Please note that this verification method will result in data that only follows the specified prefix.
Larger websites may wish to track site health and metrics for each subdomain and subdirectory in order to obtain a more comprehensive collection of data, even while smaller websites might only require one verification.
Google Search Console (GSC) offers five ways to confirm ownership of your website or specific sections using the URL Prefix method:
- Upload an HTML File: You can upload a verification file provided by GSC directly to the main folder (root directory) of your website. This can be done using a free FTP client or your hosting provider’s file manager tool (often called cPanel).
- Insert an HTML Tag: GSC provides an HTML code snippet. By adding this code to the <head> section of your website’s homepage, you can verify ownership. Many website building platforms like WordPress and Wix allow you to insert this code through their built-in interfaces.
- Leverage Existing Google Analytics Verification: If you’ve already verified your website ownership on Google Analytics, you can reuse that verification to add your site to GSC. This saves you time by avoiding a separate process.
- Verify Through Google Tag Manager: Similar to Google Analytics, if you’re already using Google Tag Manager on your website, you can use the existing tags to verify your site for GSC.
- DNS Configuration (for Subsections): If you’ve previously verified your entire website using TXT or CNAME record methods (mentioned earlier), you can use the same verification to confirm ownership of specific sections like subdomains or subdirectories within your website.
You can discover that website or segment in the Not Verified area under your account’s properties if you need to click the Verify Later button and come back at a later time. These verification methods can take several minutes to several days to replicate.
Simply click on the unverified site and click Verify Later.
How To Add A Sitemap In GSC
The XML sitemap for your website will probably eventually be found by Googlebot, but you can speed up the process by uploading your sitemaps right into GSC.
To add a sitemap to GSC, follow these steps:
- Go to the sitemap you want to add and copy the URL. The syntax of most XML sitemaps is like “https://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml.” Sitemaps automatically generated by content management systems, like WordPress, may have this syntax instead: https://www.domain.com/sitemap_index.xml.
- In GSC, click on Sitemaps in the left column.
- Add your sitemap URL in the Add a new sitemap field at the top of the page and click Submit.
Keep in mind that you can include as many sitemaps as your website needs. There will be distinct sitemaps on many websites for content, product pages, videos, and photos.
You may compare the number of pages your site has submitted to Google with the number of pages that are indexed by using this interface, which is an additional advantage of including your sitemaps.
Click the three vertical dots to the right of your sitemap and choose “See page indexing” to view this comparison.
The number of indexed pages (shown in green) and pages that are marked as “Not Indexed” (shown in gray) will be shown on the resulting page, along with a description of the reasons those pages are not indexed.
Setting Users, Owners, And Permissions
You must strictly limit who has access to GSC’s data and functionalities. When used improperly, certain features, like the Removals tools, can be quite hazardous.
The permissions settings associated with user types limit who can access these parts of GSC.
User Roles in Search Console
- Owner: This user type has complete control over the property, including verification and deletion from Search Console (GSC) entirely. Ownership can be established either through the standard verification methods or by delegation from another Owner.
- Full User: This user has nearly all the same permissions as an Owner. However, unlike an Owner, a Full User can only remove the property from their own view, not from GSC altogether.
- Restricted User: This user has read-only access to the property’s data within GSC. They cannot make any changes to the account settings or data.
It is important to note that Google recently enhanced Search Console security by introducing a new feature for managing ownership tokens under Settings > Users and permissions > Unused ownership tokens
Tokens are simply those unique codes in HTML tags you set up in your head tag, HTML files you upload, or DNS TXT record values you set when verifying your website.
Now consider the following scenario: an HTML tag upload confirmed the ownership of a website by various parties, and one of them departed the company. The problem is that even if you ban a user from the search console, they can still get back in if you don’t delete their token from the page where you can find unused ownership tokens. The ability to revoke out-of-date verification tokens to stop unwanted access by previous owners makes this feature crucial for website owners.
Dimensions And Metrics
The data in Google Search Console is divided into two categories: Dimensions and Metrics. The information in these reports can be used to gauge the effectiveness of your website in terms of traffic, ranking, and page indexation.
Dimensions classify data into useful groups in the Performance report, including Pages, Queries, Countries, and Devices. Data like Impressions and Clicks are examples of metrics.
The reasons pages were not indexed would be included in a Dimension in the Pages report, while the number of pages impacted by that reason would be included in a Metric.
For Core Web Vitals, the Dimensions would be Poor, Needs Improvement, and Good. The Metrics would include the number of pages that fall into each category.
Troubleshooting With GSC
Because it allows us to analyze and assess pages from Google’s point of view, GSC is an invaluable tool for SEO professionals. For diagnosing your website, GSC provides a range of tools from crawlability to page experience.
Crawling Issues
A page must first be crawled and then indexed by search engines before it can rank. For a page to be considered for search, it must be crawlable.
It’s a good idea to keep an eye on the Crawl Stats report in GSC on a frequent basis, regardless of crawl troubles. This report lets you know if it has had any problems with:
- Fetching your robots.txt files.
- Resolving your site’s DNS (Domain Name System).
- Connecting to your servers.
To use this report:
- Click on Settings in the left column of GSC.
- Click on Open Report next to Crawl Stats in the Crawling section of the Settings page.
- Review the Hosts section of the page to see if any of your subdomains are experiencing problems
- If your host has experienced issues in the past, you will see a fail rate report.
- Review the By response section of the page to see what percentage of pages crawled result in suboptimal response codes.
- If there are any pages with 404 response codes, click on Not found to review these pages.
Indexation Issues
Having unindexed pages means they can’t appear in search results for your target keywords. Google Search Console (GSC) offers a couple of ways to identify these unindexed pages.
The Pages report under GSC (on the left sidebar) might seem like the go-to spot, but it has limitations. This report shows both indexed and unindexed pages, but it might not be entirely accurate. It can include pages you purposefully blocked from indexing, like blog tag pages or member-only content.
For a clearer picture of your indexing health, check the Sitemaps report instead.
To get there:
- Click on “Sitemaps” in the left column of GSC.
- Click on the three vertical dots next to your site’s primary sitemap
- Select See page indexing.
The resulting report is like the Pages report, but it focuses on pages your site has outlined as important enough to include in the sitemaps you have submitted to Google.
From here, you can review the Reasons columns in the “Why pages aren’t indexed” table.
For example, you may have several pages that have been Crawled but are currently not indexed. To evaluate one of the pages, do the following:
- Click on the Crawled – currently not indexed line item to see the list of pages.
- Hover over one of the pages listed until three icons appear after the URL.
- Click on the Inspect URL icon.
- From this page, you can Request Indexing manually.
- You can also click on the “TEST LIVE URL” button on the right side of the page.
- The resulting page will indicate whether or not your page is available to Google.
- To view the test results for the page, click on View Tested Page.
- The resulting pop-in window shows the HTML captured from the page, a smartphone rendering of the page, and “More Information” on the page, including any page resource issues or JavaScript console errors.
By examining the HTML, you can determine if Googlebot could properly see your content. If your content is missing, it means Google couldn’t crawl your webpage effectively, which could negatively impact your rankings.
If everything appears in order, click Request Indexing on the main URL inspection page. The field at the top of every page in GSC allows you to inspect any URL on your verified domain.
Performance Issues
It might be worthwhile to evaluate the Core Web Vitals (CWV) throughout your website if you’re experiencing trouble getting pages into Google’s index or ranking in the search results.
These gauge how well your website functions for real users by using information from the Chrome User Experience Report (abbreviated as CrUX).
Three key metrics assess how users experience your webpages: Core Web Vitals (CWV).
- Visual stability: This is measured by Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). A CLS score indicates how often and how much the layout of your page jumps around while content loads. Imagine you’re reading an article and suddenly the text jumps because an ad pops in. An annoying experience, right? A low CLS score means a stable webpage that’s pleasant to use.
- Responsiveness: This is measured by Interaction to Next Paint (INP). This metric gauges how long it takes for your webpage to respond after a user tries to interact with it, like clicking a button or scrolling. A low INP score means your webpage feels responsive and quick.
- Loading speed: This is measured by Largest Contentful Paint (LCP). The LCP score indicates how long it takes for the most important content, like the main text or hero image, to load on your webpage. A fast LCP means users see the valuable content quickly and don’t have to wait around.
In short, focusing on good CWV scores means creating a user-friendly experience for those visiting your webpages.
GSC provides a score for both mobile and desktop, and pages are lumped into Good, Needs Improvement, or Poor based on CWV scores.
To see the issues your pages may have:
- Click on Core Web Vitals in the left column of GSC.
- Click on Open Report in either the Mobile or the Desktop graph.
- Click on one of the line items in the Why URLs aren’t considered good table.
- Click on an Example URL.
- Click on the three vertical dots next to one of the Example URLs in the pop-in window.
- Click on Developer Resources – PageSpeed Insights.
- The resulting page will allow you to see Diagnostics of issues that could be affecting your CWV.
Use these diagnostics to inform your developers, designers, and engineers, who can help you resolve those issues.
Make sure your website is using HTTPS since it improves your website security and is also a ranking factor. This is quite easy to implement because nowadays, almost all hosting providers provide free SSL certificates that can be installed with just one click.
Security And Manual Actions
Another possibility if you are having problems with indexation and ranking is that Google has manually penalized your website or has come across a security breach.
In the page’s left column, GSC offers reports on both Security and Manual Actions. Your indexation and ranking problems won’t go away unless you fix any problems you may have with either.
5 Ways You Can Use GSC For SEO
1. Measuring Your Search Presence:
- The Performance report offers a snapshot of your website’s search results showing impressions (number of times your site appears in search), clicks (how often users visit your site from search results), average click-through rate (CTR) signifying user interest in your listings, and average position revealing where your site typically ranks.
- High impressions indicate strong search visibility, but clicks matter more. A low CTR suggests room for improvement in your titles and descriptions.
- Aim for an average position within the top 10 results for optimal organic traffic. Rankings in the 20s indicate the need for optimization to climb higher. Positions below 30 might benefit from significant adjustments or could signal a mix of low-ranking and exceptionally high-ranking keywords.
- Consider these metrics as a combined picture to grasp your overall search performance.
2. Optimizing for “Near-Win” Keywords:
- The Search Results report unveils the keywords users search for to find your site and your average ranking for each term.
- Prioritize keywords ranking between positions 5 and 15, considered “striking distance” for reaching the top. Revamp your content to naturally incorporate these keywords.
3. Fast-Tracking New Page Indexing:
- While Google usually discovers new pages quickly, GSC’s URL Inspection tool allows you to expedite indexing for critical pages.
- Submit the URL for inspection and request indexing. This prioritizes the page for crawling but doesn’t guarantee immediate indexing.
4. Preserving Historical Data:
GSC data has a 16-month limit. To bypass this, export data to BigQuery for indefinite storage, enabling long-term historical analysis.
5. Unleashing the Power of Integrations:
- The true magic of GSC unfolds when you combine its data with other SEO tools.
- Integrate GSC with desktop crawlers like Screaming Frog for in-depth page audits encompassing crawlability, accessibility, and user experience.
- Merging GSC with enterprise crawlers like Lumar or Botify provides a comprehensive website analysis.
- Integrating GSC with SEO platforms like Semrush or Ahrefs unlocks a treasure trove of ranking data, content creation insights, and backlink information.
- Having all your SEO data centralized streamlines your workflow and empowers informed decisions.
By wielding GSC effectively, you can illuminate your website’s search performance and implement targeted SEO strategies for sustainable growth.
GSC Is An Essential Tool For Site Optimization
Over its nearly two-decade existence, Google Search Console has undergone changes. Ever since its launch as Google Webmaster Tools, it has given SEO experts and website owners insightful information.
You’ll soon discover how crucial it is to make wise judgments for your future site improvements if you haven’t already incorporated it into your daily routine.