Google Search Console Guide

What’s Google Search Console?

Google Search Console, previously known as Google Webmaster Tools, is a free tool for monitoring websites.

Using this tool you can see how Google views websites and optimises their organic presence by viewing:

Referring domains
Mobile site performance
Rich search results
Highest-traffic queries and web pages

For example, GSC can be used to see the number of impressions your website gains every month or know why a blog post lost traffic.

Google Search Console can be used by:

Business owners
SEO specialists
Marketers
Site administrator
Web developer
App creator

So in this blog post, we will learn:

How to add websites to GSC
How to set up owners, users and permissions
How to submit a sitemap
About dimensions and metrics
How to add filters
How to use Google Search Console

Let’s dive right in.

Adding websites to Google Search Console

Sign into your Google account
Navigate to Google Webmaster Tools
Then click “Add a property”
From the drop-down menu, click “Website” and enter your website’s URL
And click “Continue”
Choose how you want to verify that your the owner of your website
If your website uses both http:// and https://: Add these as separate websites

Remember Google will track your website’s data when you add it to GSC and before you’ve verified you’re the website owner.

A few other things to remember include:

Use your business account for a business website
Enter the exact URL for your website
Verify your website using HTML file upload, domain name provider, HTML tag, GA tracking code or GTM container snippet
Add your website’s domain variations like yourwebsite.co.uk, blog.yourwebsite.co.uk and www.yourwebsite.co.uk

Verify Your Website on GSC

You have to verify that your website is yours because:

GSC gives you confidential information about your website performance
Allows you to influence how Google crawls your website

This gives you control over your website so you must have at least one verified owner.

But even though you can use GSC data to develop a strategy to rank higher, verifying your website won’t help:

PageRank
Google search performance

Verification Methods on GSC

HTML file upload: Upload a HTML verification file to a specific website location
Domain name provider: Sign into your domain registrar and verify:
- Directly from GSC
- By adding a DNS TXT
- By adding CNAME record
HTML tag: Add a <meta> tag to the <HEAD> element of a webpage’s HTML code
Google Analytics tracking code: Copy your website’s GA tracking code
Google Tag Manager container snippet code: Copy your website’s GTM container snippet code

Note: Blogger and Sites web pages hosted by Google, will automatically be verified.

Remember to access your GA tracking code, you need “edit” permission in GA.

And you need View, Edit and Manage container-level permissions in GTM to get the snippet code.

URL Versions

Yourwebsite.co.uk and www.yourwebsite.co.uk are not the same domain.

Each URL might look the same but represents a different server and technically are two unique domains.

But, typing in “yourwebsite.co.uk” in your browser, will take you to “www.yourwebsite.co.uk”.

If you pick “www.yourwebsite.co.uk” as your preferred or canonical domain.

Then that tells Google you want all your URLs to show in the search as “www.yourwebsite.com/…”.

And even third parties linking to your webpages are treated the same.

But if you haven’t told GSC your preferred domain, they will treat www and non-www versions of your domain separately.

Meaning Google will split page views, backlinks and engagement between those domains, which isn’t good.

So, you should set up 301 redirects from non-preferred domains to preferred ones.

GSC Users, Owners and Permissions

The GSC role-types are two, owners and users.

Owners have full control in GSC over their properties and can:

Add and remove users
Change settings
See all data
Access every tool

Verified owners have completed the property verification process and delegated owners can only be added by a verified one.

Also delegated owners are able to add other delegated owners.

Users can see all data and take some actions but can’t add new users.

And full users can see most data and take some actions.

But restricted users are only allowed to view most of the data

Remember when giving permissions, only give team members the authority they need.

You can also associate a Google Analytics property with a Search Console account to see GSC data in GA reports.

And access GA reports in GSC under the links to your site and Sitelinks sections.

But a GA property can only associate to one GSC website, and one GSC website to a GA property.

So, if you want to add and remove owners and users in GSC and associate a GA property with a GSC website, learn more.

Is a Sitemap Needed?

A sitemap isnt needed to rank in Google search results but your website should be organised with web pages being linked to each other correctly.

This helps Google’s web crawlers help find, crawl and index most of your webpages.

But a sitemap helps improve website crawlability if:

It’s big: More pages makes it easier for Googlebot to miss changes or additions
Has a lot of “isolated” pages: Web Pages with less backlinks makes it harder for web crawlers to find
Is new: New websites with less backlinks makes them harder to find
Uses rich media content and/or shows up in Google News: Sitemaps helps Google format and display your website in search

Then after building your sitemap, submit it with the GSC sitemaps tool.

GSC Sitemaps Report

Google will then process and index your sitemap then it will show up in the Sitemaps report.

And then you can see when Google reads your sitemap and the number of URLs indexed.

GSC Dimensions and Metrics

Before using GSC, understand the following terms:

Google Search Console query

A search term that gets your website page impressions from a Google SERP.

And you can’t find query data in Google Analytics but only in Search Console.

Impression

An impression is created whenever a link URL shows in a search result.

And impressions count even when users don’t scroll down to see your link in the search result.

Click

A click is when users click a link in the SERPs that takes them away from Google Search.

If they click a link, go back and click the same link again, it’s one click.

And then clicking a different link, is two clicks.

But users clicking a link in Google Search for a new query, doesn’t count as a click.

Plus, this doesn’t include paid Google results.

Average position

The mean ranking of your webpage for a query.

For example, if you have a web page ranking 2nd for one term and 4th for another.

The average position for that web page would be 3.

CTR

The CTR, which stands for click-through rate, is worked by dividing Clicks by Impressions and then multiplying by 100.

For example, if your blog post shows 20 times in searches and gets 10 clicks, the CTR would be 50%.

Google Search Console Filters

GSC has different ways to view and filter your data:

Search Type

GSC has three search types:

Web
Image
Video

These search types speak for themselves but adjust your filter to where you get visits from.

And you can compare types of traffic by clicking the “Compare” tab, picking two categories to compare and then clicking “Apply.”

Date Range

You can see data going back 16 months, which was previously only 90 days.

Even being able to pick a number of pre-set time periods and being able to set custom ranges.

And using the “Compare” tab, you can compare two date ranges.

Queries, Page, Country, Device, Search Appearance

Next to the Date filter, you can click “New” to add five other types of filters, including:

Query
Page
Country
Device
Search appearance

And you can also layer these filters.

For example, to see data for certain queries on mobile searches, simply add a filter for those queries on mobile devices.

Also to filter results for posts only on a certain section of your blog, add another filter for Pages in that particular URL.

Index Coverage Report

The index coverage report details all of your website’s pages Google has attempted to index.

This report can be used to pinpoint indexing issues.

Each of your webpages are assigned one of the following:

Error: Webpage couldn’t be indexed
Warning: Web Page is indexed but has a problem
Excluded: Webpage is an alternate with duplicate content of a canonical page. It’s been excluded with the canonical page being indexed

Submitted Sitemaps

Using Google Search Console:

Highest-traffic pages
Highest-CTR queries
Average CTR
CTR over time
Impressions over time.
Average position over time
Highest-ranking pages
Lowest-ranking pages
Ranking increases and decreases
Highest-traffic queries
Search performance across desktop, mobile and tablet
Search performance across different countries
Number of indexed webpages
Which web pages aren’t indexed and why
Total indexed pages and indexing errors
Mobile usability issues
Website’s total backlinks
URLs with the most backlinks
Websites linking to you the most
Most popular anchor text for external links
Webpages with the most internal links
Website’s total internal links
Find and fix AMP errors
How Google views a URL

Highest-traffic pages

Click Performance
And click “Page” tab, next to Queries
Adjust the date range to “Last 12 months”, for a comprehensive traffic overview
“Total clicks” should be selected
Now sort from highest to lowest by clicking the downward arrow next to “Clicks”

Highest-CTR queries.

Click Performance.
And click “Queries” tab
Adjust the date range to “Last 12 months”, for a comprehensive traffic overview
“Average CTR” should be selected
Now sort from highest to lowest by clicking the small downward arrow next to “CTR”

Note: Look at these data points along with “Impressions,” so check “Total impressions” to get the full picture.

Because a web page can have high CTR but low impressions or low CTR but high impressions.

Average CTR

Click Performance
And click the date and pick a time period. Or, click “Compare” to analyse two dates
Observe “Average CTR”
Then click Performance
And click the date and pick a time period. Or, click “Compare” to analyse two date
Observe “Total impressions”
Finally, click Status then Performance
And click the date and pick a time period. Or, click “Compare” to analyse two date
Observe “Average position”

CTR over time

Remember to track your CTR because any movement is important.

If it drops but impressions go up, you’re ranking for more keywords, so average CTR declines.

If CTR goes up but impressions go down, you’ve lost keywords.

If both CTR and impressions go up, your strategy is working.

Impressions over time

This metric will go up when you create more content and optimise existing web pages.

Unless you’re trying other tactics, a few examples include:

Targeting fewer high conversion keywords compared to average ones
Focusing on different channels

Average position over time

Average position isn’t important for the bigger picture so don’t pay too much attention to this metric.

If a webpage or a number of pages starts ranking for more keywords, the average position will go up.

Unless you’re ranking for the same position or better than your current keywords, your “average” increases.

Highest-ranking pages

Click Performance
And click “Page” tab
Adjust the date range to “Last 28 days” for an up-to-date, accurate web page sample
“Average position” should be selected
Sort from smallest to highest by clicking the small upward arrow next to “Position”
Then click Performance
And click “Page” tab
Adjust the date range to “Last 28 days” for an up-to-date, accurate web page sample
“Average position” should be selected
Sort from highest to lowest by clicking the small downward arrow next to “Position”

Looking at the average position by URL shows the mean of all the webpage’s rankings.

For example, a page ranking for two keywords, a high-volume query at 1st and a low-volume one at 43rd, the average will be 22nd.

So, the success or failure of a webpage shouldn’t be based on the “average position” itself.

Lowest-ranking pages

Use the same steps mentioned above but sort from highest to smallest using the small upward arrow next to “Position”.

Ranking increases and decreases

Click Performance.
And click “Query” tab
Adjust the “Date range” then click “Compare” tab
Select two time periods and click “Apply”

Look at the data in GSC or export it for a better in-depth analysis:

Click the downward arrow under “Search Appearance”
Download as a CSV file or export to Google Sheets

Then add a column for the position differences, like:

Last 28 days Position
Previous 28 days Position

Then sort by size and if the difference is good, your website has moved up for that query but if not, it’s dropped.

Highest-traffic queries

Click Performance
And click “Query” tab
Then “Date range” to adjust the time period
“Total clicks” should be selected
Sort from highest to lowest by clicking the small downward arrow next to “Clicks”

From knowing which queries bring the most search traffic, a few examples of actions you can take include:

Optimise ranking web pages for conversion
Update them to maintain rankings
Put paid promotion behind them
Use them to link to lower-ranked relevant pages

Search performance across desktop, mobile and tablet

Click Performance
And click “Devices” tab
“Total clicks,” “Total impressions,” “Average CTR” and “Average Position” should be selected
Then compare performances across desktop, mobile and tablet

Search performance across different countries

Click Performance
And click “Countries” tab
“Total clicks,” “Total impressions,” “Average CTR” and “Average Position” should be selected
Then compare performances across nations

Number of web pages indexed

Go to “Overview”
Go down to Index coverage summary
Observe “Valid pages” count

Web Pages not indexed and why

Go to “Overview” then “Index coverage”
Go down to Details for the Errors causing indexing issues and their frequency
Then double-click on an Error type to see which web pages are affected

Total indexed pages and indexing errors

Go to “Overview” then “Index coverage”
“Error”, “Valid with warnings”, “Valid” and “Excluded” should be selected

The number of your website’s indexed pages increase over time as:

New blog posts, landing pages, additional site pages, etc. are published
Indexing errors are fixed

If indexing errors increase a lot, it could be because your website’s template changed because a lot of pages were affected at once.

Or, the sitemap you submitted had URLs Google can’t crawl because of things like:

‘Noindex’ directives
Robots.txt
Password-protected pages

If the number of your website’s indexed pages decreases without errors increasing, access is blocked to existing URLs.

Note: Diagnose issues by looking at excluded pages for clues.

Mobile usability issues

Click Mobile Usability
“Error” should be selected
Go down to Details for the Errors causing mobile usability issues and their frequency
Then double-click on an Error type to see which webpage are affected

Website’s total backlinks

Click Links
And open Top linked web pages report
Observe “Total external links” box
Sort from highest to lowest backlinks by clicking the down arrow next to “Incoming links”

Backlinks tell Google your content is trusted and useful and more backlinks are better but quality matters.

Because one link from a high-authority website is more valuable than two from low-authority websites.

Then see the websites linking to specific webpage by double-clicking URLs in the report.

URLs with the most backlinks

Click Links
And open Top linked web pages report
Sort from highest to lowest backlinks by clicking the down arrow next to “Incoming links”

To rank web pages higher, add links from a webpage with a lot of backlinks.

Backlinks give webpages page authority, links pass authority on to other pages on your site.

Websites linking to you the most

Click Links
Go down to “Top linking sites”
Then click “More”

Knowing top referring domains is useful for promotion, so start with these when:

Link-building
Comarketing campaigns
Social media partnerships

Note: Use Moz, SEMrush or Arel=”noopener” target=”_blank” hrefs to filter low-authority links.

Webpages with the most internal links

Click Links
Go down to “Top linked pages”
Then click “More”

Some URLs will have more inbound links, like for an ecommerce site, product pages in certain categories will link back to the category overview page.

This tells Google your top-level URLs are the most important, which helps them rank higher.

But, if links aren’t distributed well:

A few URLs get more links
Making it harder for the rest to receive search traffic
Because not enough authority is passed to them

So use GSC’s link data to see link distribution and if a change is needed.

Website’s total internal links

Click Links
Go down to “Top linked pages”
And click “More”
Observe the “Total internal links” box

Find and fix AMP errors

Click AMP
“Error” should be selected
Go down to “Details” to see the types of issues and their frequency

Fix errors before looking at the webpages in the “Valid with warnings” category.

Errors will be ranked by severity, frequency and they’ve been addressed.

How Google views URLs

At the top of the webpage, click the white magnifying glass
Enter the webpage’s URL of the property you’re currently viewing

If the URL is on Google, it’s indexed and can appear in search.

But it might not appear if:

It’s marked as spam
Its been removed
The content has been temporarily blocked

So Google the URL and if it shows, searchers can find it.

Open the Index coverage card for more on the URL’s presence on Google, like:

Which sitemaps point to this URL
The referring page bringing Googlebot to this URL
When Googlebot last crawled this URL
If you’ve allowed Googlebot to crawl this URL
If Googlebot could fetch this URL
If this page disallows indexing
the canonical URL you’ve set for this page
The URL Google has selected as the canonical for this page

The Enhancements section provides information about:

The AMP version of web pages
- If it exists
- Any AMP-specific issues
Job posting status and/or recipe structured data