Google offers a lot of helpful platforms for website owners. Each platform can be helpful, but Google Search Console (GSC) is one of the most important.
Why? Google is by far the most popular search engine in the world. If you don鈥檛 use the tools GSC offers, your website might get buried under other search results and stay hidden from users.
Thankfully, is completely free and pretty straightforward. Here鈥檚 everything you need to know about the platform and why you should use it.
Google Search Console Terms You Should Know
We need to cover a few terms before we dive into Google Search Console鈥檚 main features and benefits. The platform has quite a few special terms, but these are the basic ones you should know before we move forward.
Webpages and Websites
Ok, these aren鈥檛 the most technical terms out there but it鈥檚 important to distinguish the two. Put simply, your webpages exist within your website. Think of your website as a book holding all your webpages. Depending on search queries, Google may offer users the whole book or a certain page.
Coverage
In GSC, coverage specifically refers to whether or not a page is ready to show up in the search results. We鈥檒l talk about why pages may not be covered later on.
Sitemap
Sitemaps are files that detail the pages, multimedia content, and other data on your site. Google has to review the content of your website before it shows your pages in the search results. You don鈥檛 have to give Google a sitemap, but submitting one can speed up that review process.
What Is Google Search Console?
With those terms out of the way, let鈥檚 answer the obvious question: what is Google Search Console?
(Note: Google Search Console used to be called Google Webmaster Tools, but the name changed in 2015.)
At its most basic, GSC is a platform that lets you track your website鈥檚 performance in the context of Google鈥檚 search engine. When you connect your site to the platform, you鈥檒l get a wide variety of tools to analyze and improve how your site appears on Google鈥檚 search results page. The tool is a
Monitoring Google Search Performance
GSC鈥檚 main benefit is the ability to monitor your site鈥檚 search performance via the Google Search Console dashboard.
Let鈥檚 go over some of GSC鈥檚 most valuable performance indicators, then we鈥檒l talk about how the platform can support your search performance and your website overall.
Clicks
After you connect your website to Google Search Console, the platform will track how many times users click on your site when it appears in Google search results.
This data can help you improve your meta titles and descriptions (the titles and descriptions that appear on search results pages). Low click rates could indicate unattractive meta content and GSC can help you identify the problem.
Low clicks can also be an indicator of ineffective SEO strategies since Google sorts search results by relevance. If basic SEO principles like effective keywords aren鈥檛 active on your site, you might see low click rates.
Average CTR
CTR stands for
Average CTR varies depending on the industries and where websites land on the search results page (known as your position). However, websites closer to the top of the results page get more clicks — and using GSC can help you get closer to the top.
Average Position
As we just talked about, your position refers to where your website shows up on the search results page. You can monitor this with GSC. Ideally, your website will rank within the top 10 search results. But as you probably guessed, that can be very difficult since Google sorts through billions of pages.
There鈥檚 good news though. You may not rank in the top 10 right away, but GSC can help you start climbing. We鈥檒l talk more about how GSC can improve your average position later on.
Impressions
This performance indicator shows you how often users saw your pages when they showed up in their search results. Beyond viewing the basic number of impressions, you can use this tool to see how specific keywords influence your impressions and other data points.
For example, let鈥檚 say one of your keywords is “orange.” You can enter that word to view total impressions and clicks when the word “orange” was included in search queries. This tool can help you analyze the effectiveness of your keyword strategies.
What Does Google Search Console Do for Businesses?
Those are a few of GSC鈥檚 most important performance indicators, but what does Google Search Console do for businesses? And how can you use the platform to improve your search performance? To understand how GSC can support your website, we need to talk about how Google manages search results.
How Google manages search results
In GSC, indexed pages refers to webpages that have been identified and sorted within Google鈥檚 search engine. These pages enter Google鈥檚 library of indexed sites, letting them join the search results page if a relevant search query is made.
The process of indexing a page usually starts with crawling. Crawling is Google鈥檚 process of scanning a webpage to identify its content so the search engine knows when to show it to users. The terms crawling and indexing are often used interchangeably, but crawling is the process of identifying a page鈥檚 content while indexing is the process of storing that page in Google鈥檚 library of websites.
Your webpages won鈥檛 get shown on the search results page if they haven鈥檛 been indexed. And they usually won鈥檛 be indexed if they haven鈥檛 been crawled. GSC can help you ensure your pages have been crawled — we鈥檒l talk about that next.
Why GSC Is Important
Now that you understand the basics of how Google sorts webpages, let鈥檚 talk about how GSC supports website owners. There are three main ways, starting with monitoring crawl status.
Monitoring crawling
Like we talked about, Google crawls your webpages before they鈥檙e indexed (at least in most cases). The good news is Google doesn鈥檛 leave you in the dark — you can find out if your pages have been crawled by connecting your site to GSC.
Google Search Console crawl reports let you monitor if and when your pages have been crawled. However, these reports are aimed at really big websites. If your site has less than one thousand pages, GSC offers a more simple crawl monitoring option called the URL Inspection Tool. This tool lets you enter the URL to one of your pages and tells you if it鈥檚 been crawled properly.
Alerting you to problems
GSC offers a lot of tools that alert you if problems involving your search performance arise. These alerts vary depending on the issue, but you won鈥檛 get any alerts if you don鈥檛 use the platform.
Here are a few common problems GSC can help bring to your attention.
Coverage issues
GSC has a section dedicated to monitoring coverage. You鈥檒l see a few categories, including Error and Valid with warnings. If any of your pages fall under the first category, they aren鈥檛 getting covered properly. If they fall under the second, you鈥檙e at risk of losing coverage. If you notice an alert in either of these categories, you can click it to learn more about the problem. Using GSC will keep you ahead of these issues and help you fix them before your website stops landing on the results page.
Old links
Old links technically fall under the broad category of coverage issues. Google relies on
Manual actions (Penalties)
If your site breaks Google鈥檚 rules, you might get a manual action (a.k.a. penalty). Manual actions are essentially human reviews of your site. Google mostly relies on computer programs to sort through websites, but their system sometimes has humans perform a manual review if a site appears to be breaking certain rules.
These rules mainly focus on shady stuff, like actively trying to cheat or mislead Google to boost your site鈥檚 position. Google may remove your site from the search results if this happens. Most people don鈥檛 need to worry about manual actions if they鈥檙e not breaking the rules, but you won鈥檛 know if your site gets penalized if you don鈥檛 use GSC.
Mobile usability issues
The world increasingly uses mobile devices to browse the web — and Google takes that into account when managing search results. If your website has a mobile usability problem, Google Search Console will alert you so you can fix the issue. If you don鈥檛 use GSC, mobile usability issues can fly under the radar and hurt your search performance.
Checking for security issues
You don鈥檛 have to use GSC to monitor website security issues, but it鈥檚 a great tool for keeping your site鈥檚 content safe. And it鈥檚 free.
From the Google Search Console homepage, you鈥檒l have access to the Security Issues tab. This section of GSC will list potential security threats, including hacking and other malicious activities that could harm site owners or visitors. Without GSC, you won鈥檛 have access to Google鈥檚 free security monitoring — potentially putting your site at risk.
Click through all tabs in the Search Console admin to discover all reports and important areas
Google Search Console FAQ
In summary, Google Search Console helps website owners monitor search performance, identify problems hurting their position, and stay in tune with their website overall.
We鈥檝e covered the basic function and benefits of Google Search Console, but we鈥檒l answer some FAQs so you鈥檙e fully prepared to start using the platform.
What about Google Analytics? (Google Search Console vs Google Analytics)
If reading about GSC鈥檚 performance monitoring tools makes you think of Google Analytics, you鈥檙e probably wondering if you need to use both platforms. The simple answer? Yes, you need both.
GSC and Google Analytics both offer website analytics, but GSC focuses on the performance of your website on the search results page. If you just connect your site to Google Analytics, you鈥檒l miss out on helpful data like your average position and impressions. You鈥檒l also miss out on important alerts such as manual actions and security issues — so Google Analytics really isn鈥檛 a replacement for Google Search Console.
Instead, GA and GSC can work together. You can connect Search Console to your Google Analytics to enrich your GA reports with organic search data directly from Google.
Should you use Google Search Console if you have a business website?
Google Search Console is useful for every type of website — especially business websites. Whether you run an ecommerce site or a simple page listing your company鈥檚 contact details, ensuring your website performs well on Google is vital for connecting with customers and supporting your brand.
Is Google Search Console a replacement for an SEO specialist?
No. Google Search Console can help your site鈥檚 SEO strategies, but the platform isn鈥檛 a replacement for SEO professionals.
However, GSC can help SEO specialists identify
Get Started Today!
Google has been the dominant search engine for years and that probably won鈥檛 change any time soon. Without Google Search Console, you鈥檙e left in the dark and your website could stop reaching searchers. So learn how to use GSC today!
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