Search Console mastery

Google Search Console is the single most important free SEO tool. It shows you your real Google data: the queries you rank for, your click-through rates, indexing status, Core Web Vitals, manual actions. Nothing replaces it.

Setup

Verify ownership

Add your site at search.google.com/search-console. Verify via:

• DNS TXT record (most reliable, verifies whole domain)
• HTML file upload
• HTML meta tag
• Google Analytics
• Google Tag Manager

Domain property vs URL property

• Domain property (example.com), covers all subdomains, all protocols (http, https, www, non-www)
• URL prefix property (https://example.com), covers that specific URL and below

Set up a Domain property for consolidated reporting.

Submit a sitemap

Sitemaps → Add new sitemap → enter sitemap.xml URL. GSC confirms fetch + shows indexed count.

The reports that matter

Performance

The most important report. Shows:

• Clicks
• Impressions
• Average CTR
• Average position

Filter by:

• Queries, see what queries drive clicks + which get impressions without clicks
• Pages, see which pages perform
• Countries, geographic breakdown
• Devices, desktop / mobile / tablet
• Search appearance, rich results, featured snippets, AMP
• Dates, custom date ranges, comparison

Indexing → Pages

Shows which pages are:

• Indexed
• Not indexed (with reasons, excluded by robots.txt, not found 404, soft 404, noindex, crawled but not indexed, duplicate without canonical, etc.)

Essential for diagnosing indexing problems.

Indexing → Sitemaps

Per sitemap: URLs submitted, URLs discovered, errors.

Experience → Core Web Vitals

Field data on LCP, INP, CLS. Separate reports for mobile + desktop. Pages grouped by URL pattern.

Experience → Mobile Usability

Deprecated in 2023 but still accessible for some properties. Check HTTPS + mobile issues through Page Experience signals.

Experience → HTTPS

How many of your URLs are HTTPS. Should be 100%.

Enhancements

Per structured data type: pages with rich results, pages with errors, warnings. Fix errors, they disqualify pages from rich results.

Links

• External links: top linking sites, top linked pages, top anchor text
• Internal links: most linked internal pages

Security & Manual Actions

Check regularly. Manual actions = Google penalized your site. Security issues = compromise detected.

URL Inspection

Individual URL tool. For any URL:

• Indexing status (indexed, not indexed, crawled-not-indexed)
• Last crawl date
• User-declared canonical vs Google-selected canonical
• Mobile usability
• Request indexing (after changes)

First stop for debugging any specific URL's issues.

Critical workflows

Finding optimization opportunities

1. Performance → filter to queries with high impressions + low CTR
2. These are queries you rank for but users aren't clicking your listing
3. Usually: title tag or meta description improvement opportunity
4. Update titles/metas, track CTR change

Finding pages that almost rank

1. Performance → filter by position 8-15
2. These pages are close to page 1 but not quite there
3. With a content refresh + internal links boost, many can be pushed into top 10

Finding indexation issues

1. Indexing → Pages → "Not indexed" section
2. Review reasons, each category has different fix
3. "Crawled, not indexed" = thin/duplicate content (improve quality)
4. "Discovered, not crawled" = crawl budget issue (wait, or request indexing)
5. "Excluded by noindex" = intentional or mistake; check

Watching for manual actions

Security & Manual Actions → Manual Actions. Check weekly. If a notice appears, it'll detail the violation + partial/site-wide scope + required action.

Data lag + limits

• Performance data: 2-3 days lag
• 16-month history maximum
• Top 1000 queries per filter (use date ranges + filters to drill deeper)
• Anonymized low-volume queries (appear as "(other)")

Exporting data

GSC → connect to Looker Studio for long-term, unlimited-row reporting. Alternatively, use the Search Console API for custom pipelines.