Google Search Console
Also called GSC, Search Console, Google Webmaster Tools.
Google Search Console is Google's free tool that shows how your website performs in Google Search: which searches show your pages, how often people click, and whether Google can crawl and index each page. You verify that you own the site, and Google starts reporting. It's for your website; your Business Profile has its own stats.
Doug's Field Guide · Updated
What does it tell you?
The Performance report is the part most owners use. It shows four numbers for your site, and for each search and page. Clicks are how many times someone clicked through to your site from Google Search. Impressions are how many times your site appeared in results. Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions. Average position is roughly where your top result sat.
The searches list is the gold. It shows the actual words people typed before they found you. A pest control company might find it gets hundreds of impressions for "termite inspection for home sale" and almost no clicks, which says the page is showing up and not convincing anyone. That's a title and description to rewrite, or a page to build.
The Pages report shows which pages Google has indexed and which it hasn't, with a reason. A service page that isn't indexed can't show up in Google at all.
How do you set it up?
Go to search.google.com/search-console and add your site. Google offers two kinds of property. A domain property covers your whole domain, every subdomain and both http and https, and you verify it by adding a DNS record at the company where you bought the domain. A URL-prefix property covers one exact address like https://www.yourcompany.com, and you can verify it with an HTML tag, a file upload, Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager.
If you can get into your domain registrar, pick the domain property. It catches everything, including a subdomain like services.yourcompany.com.
Submit your sitemap under Sitemaps so Google finds every page. When you publish or fix an important page, paste its address into URL Inspection and request indexing. Google doesn't guarantee it will crawl or index any page, but this puts it in the queue.
Get Search Console working this week
- Add your site as a domain property and verify it with the DNS record at your domain registrar.
- Submit your sitemap, usually at yourcompany.com/sitemap.xml.
- Open Performance, sort searches by impressions, and note five searches with lots of impressions and few clicks.
- Open the Pages report and check that every service page is indexed.
Common mistakes
- Verifying only the www address, then missing data from other versions of the site.
- Looking only at clicks and ignoring searches with high impressions and low clicks.
- Never checking the Pages report, so an unindexed service page goes unnoticed for months.
How Doug does it
Doug checks every week how your business shows up on Google, Google Maps and AI assistants, and turns what he finds into a fix queue with the pages and FAQ answers drafted. He can publish those pages to your site, so the searches you find in Search Console have a page to land on.
Terms on this page
- Average position
- In Search Console, the average rank of your site's topmost result for a search or page. Lower numbers are closer to the top.
- Canonical URL
- The one address you want Google to treat as the main version when several URLs show the same or nearly the same page. You signal it with a rel="canonical" tag, redirects or your sitemap.
- Click-through rate
- Clicks divided by impressions. A page with many impressions and a low click-through rate is showing up but not getting picked.
- Crawling
- When Google's automated programs, called crawlers, visit pages and download their text, images and video so Google can learn what's on them.
- Impressions
- In Search Console, the number of times your site appeared in Google Search results, whether or not anyone clicked.
- Indexing
- When Google analyzes a crawled page and stores it in its index. A page that isn't indexed can't appear in Google Search, and Google doesn't guarantee indexing.
Keep exploring
- Title tags and meta descriptionsThe blue link and the two lines under it in Google, written by you for each page.
- Featured snippetThe quoted answer Google shows from one page, above the usual results.
- Internal linksLinks from one page on your site to another, with words that say where they go.
- The weekly visibility checkEach week he asks the assistants your customers' questions and counts your mentions.
Sources
- Search Console Help: Performance report (Search results)
- Search Console Help: Verify your site ownership
- Google Search Central: In-depth guide to how Google Search works
Written by Doug's team from these sources and our own work with local businesses. Search engines change their rules, so check the source before a big decision.
