Google Search Console: What It Is, How to Set It Up and Use It

Google Search Console shows how a website appears in Google Search: which queries trigger its pages, how many impressions and clicks they receive, which URLs are indexed, and which technical issues prevent Google from crawling the content.

It is a free service for website owners, SEO specialists, marketers, and developers. Until 2015, the service was called Google Webmaster Tools, a name that still appears in older guides and search queries.

Search Console records how Google discovers, indexes, and displays pages. Its data helps identify where a website is losing impressions, clicks, or indexed pages, investigate the cause, and prepare a specific list of changes.

At SEO-Evolution, we analyse GSC data alongside Google Analytics 4, technical crawls, search results, and the website’s change history. This helps us distinguish a decline in search demand from a technical error, an underperforming snippet, lost rankings, or an indexing problem.

What Is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a Google tool for monitoring organic search traffic, indexing, and a website’s technical health. It displays data collected by Google while crawling, processing, and showing pages in search results.

Search Console allows you to:

• view clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position;
• find the search queries and pages that bring users to the website;
• check the indexing status of a specific URL;
• analyse why pages have been excluded from the index;
• submit an XML sitemap;
• monitor Core Web Vitals, HTTPS, and structured data;
• check Manual Actions and Security Issues;
• review a sample of external and internal links;
• assess the effects of a migration, redesign, or CMS change.

Connecting a website to Search Console is not required for it to appear in Google. The search engine can discover pages through internal and external links. GSC gives the website owner tools to check how Google crawls and indexes the site.

Search Console is connected to a website, not to a company’s Google business listing. Use Google Business Profile to manage the company address, opening hours, phone number, reviews, and visibility in Google Maps.

We explain how to create and optimise a company listing in our guide to Google Business Profile in 2026 .

An official overview of the service is available on the Google Search Console page .

How to Sign In and Add a Website to Google Search Console

To get started, sign in with a Google Account, create a website property, and verify ownership. The property type determines which protocols, subdomains, and directories are included in the reports.

How to Sign In to Google Search Console

You do not need to create a separate Search Console account. The service uses a standard Google Account.

1. Open Google Search Console .
2. Sign in with the relevant Google Account.
3. Select an existing property or click the option to add a new one.
4. If another user has already created the property, ask them to grant you access.

If the website is not listed after you sign in, check which Google Account you are using. Do not create another property until you confirm whether the owner or a previous contractor already has access to an existing one.

Which Property Type Should You Choose?

Search Console offers two main options: a Domain property and a URL-prefix property. A Domain property is normally the better choice when you need complete coverage of the website.

A Domain property combines data from all protocols and subdomains. Create an additional URL-prefix property when you need to analyse a blog, language version, subdomain, or another section separately.

The coverage rules are explained in the Google documentation on adding a property .

How to Verify Website Ownership

Ownership verification confirms that a user has access to the domain or website code. The available method depends on the property type and the access you have.

• DNS record. Required for a Domain property and also available for a URL-prefix property.
• HTML file. Upload the verification file to the website’s root directory.
• HTML tag. Add the verification tag to the <head> section of the homepage.
• Google Analytics. This method requires the necessary permissions and a correctly installed Analytics tag.
• Google Tag Manager. The container must be installed correctly, and the user must have the required permissions.

After verification, leave the DNS record, HTML file, or verification tag in place. Google periodically checks the verification token again. Removing it may cause the owner to lose verified status.

How to Assign Access Permissions

A company representative should remain the primary owner of the property. Give the SEO specialist, agency, analyst, or developer a separate level of access that matches their responsibilities.

• Owner. Can manage the property, users, settings, and all available tools.
• Full user. Can view all data and perform the actions available to users.
• Restricted user. Can view most reports but has no administrative permissions.

When employees or contractors change, review the user list and remove access that is no longer required.

The differences between permission levels are explained in the documentation on owners and users .

How to Set Up Google Search Console

After adding the property, submit the sitemap, assign user access, and check the indexing of the website’s main page types. Once data appears, you can begin analysing search queries and technical reports.

1. Check the property coverage. Make sure it includes the required protocols, subdomains, and language versions.
2. Submit sitemap.xml. The sitemap should contain canonical pages that return a 200 status code.
3. Add users. Give access to the SEO specialist, developer, analyst, or another employee who needs GSC data.
4. Open Indexing → Pages. Check whether Google has discovered the website’s main page types.
5. Open Security & Manual Actions. Confirm that Google has not reported any critical problems.
6. Link the property to Google Analytics 4. This allows you to compare search queries with user behaviour after the click.

For a new or recently added website, the first data may take up to a week to appear. Google may email the owner when the reports become available. If no data appears after a week, check the protocol, domain, and whether the website has received any impressions in Search.

The Overview page may also display recommendations related to issues, opportunities, or settings. Check which URLs the recommendation applies to and whether the proposed action is appropriate for your website’s structure.

Main Google Search Console Reports

Each Search Console section answers a different question: how the website receives traffic, why a page is not indexed, whether Googlebot can access it, which URLs have performance problems, and whether Google has detected security violations.

The menu can differ between properties. Additional reports appear when Google finds a relevant type of content, structured data, or traffic from a separate Google surface such as Discover.

The Performance Report in Search Console

The Performance report shows how the website appears in Google results. You can analyse the data by query, page, country, device, date, and search appearance.

Four main metrics are available at the top of the report:

• Clicks. The number of visits from Google search results to the website.
• Impressions. The number of times pages from the website appeared in search results.
• Average CTR. The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click.
• Average position. The average position of the website’s highest-ranking result for each impression.

Search Console stores up to 16 months of historical data. For more immediate monitoring, the last 24 hours are available with hourly detail. Longer periods can be grouped by day, week, or month.

The metric calculations are explained in the Performance report documentation .

How to View Search Queries

1. Open Performance.
2. Enable clicks, impressions, average CTR, and average position.
3. Select a date range. For a website with limited traffic, begin with three months.
4. Open the Queries tab.
5. Add a filter for country, device, or page.
6. Compare the data with the previous period or the equivalent period from the previous year.

To see which URLs appear for a specific query, click the query and open the Pages tab. If several similar pages appear for the same query on different days, check whether they are competing with one another. The cause may be an overlapping search intent, conflicting canonical tags, or internal links pointing to different versions of the page.

How to Find Pages with Growth Potential

Start with pages that already receive impressions. Google has discovered these URLs and associates them with relevant search queries, so targeted improvements may produce results faster than creating an entirely new page.

• High impressions and low CTR. Check the title tag, the content above the fold, alignment with the query, and the actual search snippet.
• Queries ranking in positions 5–20. Check the completeness of the answer, page structure, internal linking, external links, and brand mentions.
• Impressions are rising faster than clicks. Analyse CTR, changes in the search results, and new competitors.
• Clicks are falling while the position remains stable. Check seasonality, changes in demand, and search features that may be taking clicks away from standard results.
• The page appears for irrelevant queries. Refine the H1, subheadings, primary answer, and internal link anchor text.

Average position is useful for analysing trends. It varies by country, device, result type, and the impressions that actually occurred. Use a dedicated rank-tracking service to monitor a fixed list of keywords every day.

At SEO-Evolution, we first segment data by page, country, and device. A site-wide chart can hide a decline in one category or growth generated entirely by branded queries.

How to Separate Branded and Non-Branded Queries

Branded queries contain the company name, domain, product name, or recognisable variations of the brand. Non-branded queries describe a product, service, or problem without naming a specific company.

For some properties, the Query filter includes a built-in option to separate branded and non-branded traffic. Google does not show this filter for properties with too few impressions or properties created only for a directory, such as https://example.com/blog/ .

Branded traffic reflects existing demand for the company. Non-branded traffic indicates whether people who do not yet know the brand can discover the website.

How to Group Similar Queries with One Filter

A regular expression is a search pattern that can match several phrases at once. It is useful when a brand, product, or topic has multiple spelling variations.

For example, this expression groups several variations of the Search Console name:

(google search console|search console|gsc|google webmaster tools)

To use it, add a query filter, select the regular expression option, and insert the pattern. The table will then show queries that match at least one of the specified variants.

For routine analysis, the Contains, Doesn’t contain, and Exactly matches filters are usually enough. Use regular expressions for more complex groups of queries or URLs.

Examples are available in Google’s documentation on advanced filters .

Why the Query Total Is Lower Than the Chart Total

The total shown on the chart can be higher than the sum of the rows in the Queries table. For example, the chart may report 10,000 impressions while the visible queries add up to 9,300.

There are two main reasons for the difference:

• Google hides some rare queries to protect the privacy of individual users;
• the interface displays only the most significant rows rather than every recorded query.

Hidden queries are included in the total on the chart but do not appear as separate table rows. When you apply a query filter, Google also removes these hidden queries from the chart total, so the number may change more than expected.

On the Pages tab, most data is assigned to the canonical URL. If a user opens an alternative version of a page, the click may be reported against the URL Google selected as canonical.

Table limitations and data grouping rules are explained in the Performance report data documentation .

How to Store Data for a Large Website

The Export button lets you download the current chart and table as a file or send them to Google Sheets. This is normally sufficient for a one-off analysis of a smaller website.

Large ecommerce websites, media platforms, and international projects can configure a daily data export to Google BigQuery. This makes it possible to:

• retain history beyond the standard 16-month period;
• analyse large sets of pages and queries;
• combine data from multiple language versions or sections;
• build custom reports and dashboards.

BigQuery is part of Google Cloud. Storage and processing may become chargeable after the free usage allowances have been exhausted.

Setup instructions are provided in the Search Console bulk data export documentation .

Page Indexing in Google Search Console

The Indexing → Pages report shows which URLs known to Google have been indexed and why other pages have been excluded.

It is normal to see redirected pages, technical duplicates, alternative URLs with a correctly specified canonical page, and pages with a noindex tag outside the index. Investigate URLs that should generate traffic but are not being indexed.

Main Indexing Statuses

Google provides a complete list of reasons in the Page indexing report documentation .

How to Find Out Why a Page Is Not Indexed

If an important page is missing from the index, check the following in order:

1. The URL returns a 200 status code and opens without authentication.
2. The page does not contain a noindex tag.
3. Googlebot is not blocked by robots.txt.
4. The canonical tag points to the correct primary version of the page.
5. The canonical URL is included in sitemap.xml.
6. Internal links from indexed sections point to the page.
7. The content serves a distinct search intent and does not duplicate another page.

If hundreds of URLs receive the same status, examine the template or rule they share. The cause is often a filter, URL parameter, canonical-tag generation error, incorrect sitemap, or CMS change.

Search Console reports the problems detected by Google. A complete crawl of the website structure, server responses, duplicate pages, redirects, and internal links is performed as part of a technical SEO audit .

URL Inspection

The URL Inspection tool shows what Google knows about a specific page. It allows you to check indexing, crawl accessibility, the canonical version, the last crawl, and any detected structured data.

The report displays:

• the URL’s index status;
• the date of the last crawl;
• the Google crawler type;
• whether crawling and indexing are allowed;
• the user-declared canonical page;
• the Google-selected canonical page;
• detected structured data;
• loaded and blocked resources.

Testing the Live URL

The Test Live URL feature fetches the page at the time of the request and shows whether Googlebot can access its current version.

Use the live test after changing a noindex tag, robots.txt rule, canonical URL, page content, or required resources. It shows the current state of the page, while information about the indexed version will update only after Google crawls it again.

How to Request Indexing

After publishing an important page or fixing a technical error, click Request Indexing. Google will add the URL to its recrawl queue.

Before submitting the request, check the response code, Googlebot access, canonical page, and absence of a noindex tag. Repeatedly clicking the button will not fix a technical problem or speed up crawling.

Google decides when to recrawl the page and whether it should be included in the index.

The fields and statuses are explained in the URL Inspection documentation .

Sitemaps and robots.txt in Search Console

An XML sitemap helps Google discover important pages, while robots.txt controls crawler access to URLs. These files serve different purposes and cannot replace one another.

How to Submit a Sitemap in Google Search Console

Sitemap.xml is a file listing the pages that a website recommends for Google to crawl. It is most useful for large catalogues, new projects, multilingual websites, and pages with limited internal linking.

1. Check that the file is available at a publicly accessible URL.
2. Open Indexing → Sitemaps.
3. Enter the path, for example sitemap.xml or sitemap_index.xml .
4. Submit the sitemap and wait for the processing result.

A Success status means Google received and processed the file. It does not confirm that every URL in the sitemap has been indexed.

Include canonical URLs that return a 200 status code and are intended to appear in Search. Do not include redirected pages, 404 pages, URLs with a noindex tag, technical duplicates, or URLs blocked by robots.txt.

Sitemap requirements and error explanations are available in the Sitemaps report documentation .

How robots.txt Affects Indexing

The robots.txt file controls crawling. A Disallow directive prevents Googlebot from opening a URL, but it does not remove the page from search results by itself.

To remove a page from the index, use a noindex tag, a 404 or 410 response, authentication, or another appropriate method.

Do not block the URL in robots.txt before Google has processed the noindex tag. Otherwise, the crawler cannot access the page code and read the indexing restriction.

Core Web Vitals in Search Console

The Experience → Core Web Vitals report reflects real user experience based on Chrome User Experience Report data. Pages are grouped according to similar structure and performance behaviour.

Google evaluates these metrics at the 75th percentile. This means that at least 75% of real visits must meet the defined threshold. For example, a URL group receives a good LCP rating when at least 75 out of every 100 visits load the largest element within 2.5 seconds.

Current thresholds and measurement methodology are described in Google’s Core Web Vitals documentation .

How to Find the Cause of Poor Core Web Vitals

Open a URL group with a Poor status, select a representative page, and test it in PageSpeed Insights and Chrome DevTools.

Look for a shared template element such as a banner, above-the-fold image, third-party script, font, CSS file, or slow server response.

If every ecommerce category has poor LCP, fixing one individual page will not change the group’s status. The category template needs to be optimised.

Core Web Vitals describe page speed, responsiveness, and visual stability. Rankings also depend on content, relevance, website structure, and other Google signals.

HTTPS, Structured Data, and Crawling

Additional technical reports in Search Console help you check secure page versions, structured data, and Googlebot activity. They complement the indexing reports but do not replace checks of the website code and server.

The HTTPS Report

The HTTPS report identifies pages for which Google could not use a secure version. After moving from HTTP to HTTPS, check the certificate, redirects, canonical URLs, sitemap, and internal links.

Structured Data Reports

The Enhancements section may include reports for breadcrumbs, products, videos, recipes, jobs, and other supported types of structured data.

An error means that a particular item does not meet the requirements for an enhanced search result. The page itself may still remain indexed and appear as a standard result.

Crawl Stats

The report is available under Settings → Crawl Stats. It shows the number of Googlebot requests, server responses, download time, file types, and host availability.

For a small website, monitoring indexing errors and individual URLs is normally enough. Crawl Stats is primarily useful for large catalogues, marketplaces, and media websites with thousands of pages.

The report can reveal:

• a sudden increase in crawling of parameterised URLs;
• an increase in 5xx server responses;
• reduced Googlebot activity after a technical change;
• DNS, server, or robots.txt availability problems;
• excessive crawling of unnecessary file types.

The metrics are explained in the Crawl Stats documentation .

Security and Manual Actions

Check this section after a sudden decline in search visibility, a browser warning, or the appearance of unfamiliar pages on the website. It contains two separate reports: actions taken by Google for policy violations and technical security problems.

Manual Actions

The report shows penalties applied by a Google reviewer after a violation of Google’s spam policies has been identified. The restriction may affect individual pages, a section, or the entire website.

If a manual action is active:

1. open the description of the violation;
2. identify the affected pages or templates;
3. remove the cause across the entire website;
4. prepare a reconsideration request;
5. describe the completed changes specifically, without vague assurances.

If no message is shown, Google has not applied a manual action. Algorithmic changes are not reported in this section.

Security Issues

The report warns about hacking, phishing, malware, harmful downloads, and injected content that could harm visitors.

After receiving such a warning, change access credentials, close the vulnerability, remove infected files, and check the database and every affected URL. Removing visible spam without closing the point of entry will provide only a temporary fix.

How to Remove a URL from Google Search

The Removals tool can quickly hide a URL from Google results for approximately six months or clear an outdated snippet until the page is crawled again.

You can find it under Indexing → Removals. After temporarily hiding the result, make the removal permanent on the website itself:

• return a 404 or 410 status code for a page that no longer exists;
• set up a 301 redirect when a direct replacement exists;
• add a noindex tag when the page should remain available to users but not appear in Search;
• protect confidential content with authentication.

The Removals tool hides a result temporarily. If the URL continues to return a 200 status code and remains indexable, it may appear in Google again.

The limitations of the tool are explained in the Removals documentation .

Links in Google Search Console

The Links report provides a basic overview of a website’s external and internal link structure. It helps identify which pages receive the most links and how the internal structure distributes authority between sections.

The report shows:

• pages most frequently linked from other websites;
• domains that link to the website;
• external link anchor text;
• pages with the largest number of internal links.

Google displays a sample of known links, so the report is not a complete list of the website’s backlink profile. For a detailed analysis, combine it with data from other tools and review the actual linking pages.

In the internal links section, look for important pages that receive very few links from elsewhere on the website. These are often older articles, newly added service pages, deep categories, or pages outside the main navigation.

Search Console Insights and New Features

Insights brings together pages and queries showing the largest gains or losses. Google is also gradually introducing query grouping, chart annotations, natural-language report configuration, and separate data for generative search.

What Search Console Insights Shows

Insights provides a concise overview of clicks, impressions, popular pages, content with increasing or declining performance, and the main search queries.

The report helps you quickly identify:

• new pages that have started receiving traffic;
• content that has lost clicks;
• topics showing increasing demand;
• queries with the largest changes;
• Google surfaces that are sending users to the website.

The available features are described in the Search Console Insights documentation .

Queries Leading to Your Site

In this card, Google can combine semantically similar search phrases into topic groups. For example, how to set up Search Console, Search Console setup, and connecting Search Console may be grouped under one topic.

Click a group to open the Performance report and review the individual queries, pages, and metrics. Query grouping is available only for properties with enough data.

How to Mark Website Updates on the Chart

You can add a custom annotation to a specific date in the Performance report. Right-click the chart, select Add annotation, and briefly describe the event.

Record events such as a redesign launch, CMS change, domain migration, major section update, or technical fix. An annotation can contain up to 120 characters and is visible to all users with access to the property.

Several months later, the marker will help you compare changes in clicks and impressions with a specific website update.

How to Configure a Report with a Natural-Language Request

Google is testing an AI-assisted Performance report configuration feature with a limited number of accounts. When available, you can describe the required data view in a normal sentence, for example: show clicks from mobile users to blog pages over the last three months.

The system can automatically:

• add filters for query, page, country, or device;
• select a date range;
• configure a comparison;
• enable the relevant metrics.

The feature does not sort the table or export data. Before analysing the result, check that the system interpreted the request correctly and applied the intended filters. Google has not yet published a separate list of supported languages.

Generative Search Performance Report

As of July 2026, Google is gradually testing a separate Generative AI Performance report in Search Console. It shows organic impressions of links to the website in AI Overviews and AI Mode.

The report can be used to analyse:

• impression trends by day, week, or month;
• pages that appear most often in generative answers;
• the countries where impressions occurred;
• device types.

Google has not published a separate list of countries where this particular Search Console report is available. It is being rolled out to selected properties and may be absent because of the limited testing phase or an insufficient number of impressions.

AI Overviews and AI Mode are already available to users in Ukraine and support the Ukrainian language. Ukrainian websites can therefore receive impressions from these features, although the separate report will appear only after Google enables it for the property and enough data has been collected.

The available metrics are described in Google’s Generative AI performance documentation .

Controlling Participation in Generative Search

Some properties now have a Generative AI features in Search setting under Settings. It allows the owner to control whether links and content from the website can be used in AI Overviews, AI Mode, and supported generative features in Google Discover.

Participation is enabled by default. If the owner disables it, links to the website and its content will not appear in these generative features, and the property will not receive impressions or clicks from them.

This setting does not affect standard Google results, is not a ranking signal, and does not control model training. It also has no effect on the website’s presence in ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity, or the standalone Gemini application.

The official rules are provided in Google’s documentation on generative AI features in Search .

Search Console covers only Google’s generative search features. Monitoring brand mentions in ChatGPT, Gemini, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity requires separate tracking as part of GEO services , including answer monitoring, entity development, content optimisation, reputation sources, and external mentions.

How to Link Search Console to GA4

Linking Search Console to Google Analytics 4 connects data from before and after the visit. GSC reports the query, impression, click, and position, while GA4 records page views, engagement, events, conversions, and revenue.

After the connection is created, two reports become available in Google Analytics 4:

• Google Organic Search Queries. Shows search queries and the main Search Console metrics.
• Google Organic Search Traffic. Combines landing-page data with user behaviour after the click.

To create the link, you need to be a verified owner in Search Console and have the Editor role in Google Analytics 4.

The numbers in the two systems should not match exactly. Search Console counts clicks in Google Search, while GA4 records sessions after the page loads. Cookie consent, blockers, time zones, canonical URLs, and attribution rules can also contribute to the difference.

The connection process is explained in the Google documentation on linking Search Console and GA4 .

Configuring Google Analytics, Tag Manager, events, and data collection checks is included in our Google Analytics 4 setup service .

How Often Should You Check Google Search Console?

The right frequency depends on the size of the website, the number of new pages, and the pace of technical changes. A small corporate website may need a detailed review once a month, while a large ecommerce website or media platform requires more frequent monitoring.

• After publishing an important page. Check the URL, canonical version, accessibility, and sitemap inclusion.
• After a release or migration. Review 404 errors, redirects, indexing, sitemap files, robots.txt, and click trends.
• Weekly. Check for sudden traffic changes, new indexing issues, and Google notifications.
• Monthly. Analyse queries, pages with growth potential, CTR, Core Web Vitals, and internal links.
• Quarterly. Review long-term trends, declining content, website structure, and the next SEO priorities.

After a major change, add an annotation to the chart. It will help distinguish the effect of the update from seasonality, changes in demand, or search engine updates.

How to Use GSC Data for SEO

Search Console data should lead to a specific check and a specific action.

• When CTR is low, compare the queries, search snippet, search intent, and competitors’ results.
• For a Crawled – currently not indexed status, check the page content, duplicates, canonical URL, and internal links.
• After traffic falls following a release, review redirects, response codes, sitemap files, robots.txt, and indexing across the main templates.
• For poor Core Web Vitals, investigate the shared template rather than one isolated URL.
• Growth in non-branded impressions indicates that the website is reaching new search topics and a broader audience.

Do not evaluate a website using a single metric. A higher average position without additional clicks may not produce a business result, while more traffic without enquiries may indicate irrelevant queries or underperforming landing pages.

At SEO-Evolution, Search Console data is combined with technical audits, analytics, competitor research, content, and the website’s commercial objectives. This approach is part of our SEO services and helps us prioritise work using real performance data.