What is the Google Search Console?
The Google Search Console (GSC for short; formerly: Google Webmaster Tools) is a web-based analysis and service tool provided free of charge by Google that supports webmasters and SEOs with search engine optimization.
It contains a wide range of reports and functions with which websites can be analyzed, monitored and optimized. In the broadest sense, the data provided relates to the indexing, presentation and performance of the website within Google Search.
The Search Console is one of the basic tools for everyone who has an interest in high visibility and a good ranking for their website. Not just because it is free, but above all because the data in it comes directly from Google.
The Search Console thus allows us to view a website through Google's eyes and to understand the search engine better this way. The analyses and statistics provide insight into what is important to the Google algorithm. From this, relevant measures for search engine optimization can be derived.
Why does Google provide the Search Console?
Data is the gold of the 21st century. Google is one of the companies that live off this data. The more precisely Google knows its users, the better the company can satisfy their needs. This applies in principle to all the services now offered under the Alphabet umbrella. And most of all to the core product: Google Search.
The reason why Google is today the search engine with the largest market share, and thereby became the globe-spanning corporation that no one can avoid any longer, is the quality of the search results. Google has managed to deliver to its users the search results that best match their search query.
To defend its market power, the search engine works continuously on improving the algorithm further and presenting its users with even more relevant search results. Google therefore has an interest in webmasters optimizing their websites. Because optimizing means nothing other than making them technically and content-wise more interesting and more useful for visitors.
Search engine optimization is therefore neither reprehensible nor forbidden. Quite the opposite: SEO is something Google wants. That is why Google makes numerous data available in the Search Console with which websites can be optimized. At times, even concrete recommendations for action are given. Because the better websites are optimized, the easier it is for the algorithm to place relevant pages as high as possible in the search results and thus satisfy search engine users.
Who is the Google Search Console suitable for?
The Search Console is an indispensable tool for all webmasters who want their website to be noticed (visibility) and found (ranking) by internet users. It provides first-hand data and is the only way to receive direct feedback from Google and to get in contact with the search engine, for example to ask for the manual removal of URLs from the search index.
The insights gained with the help of the Search Console form the foundation of search engine optimization. Consequently, it is also a tool that search engine optimizers work with intensively.
By the way, developers of an Android app can also link it to a website property in the Search Console. When an app is linked to a website, Google automatically tries to index and capture the app by deriving the app structure from the website structure. In this way, the website can receive a higher ranking in the Google search results.
What distinguishes the Google Search Console from Google Analytics?
While Google Analytics primarily provides insights into how many visitors arrive at the website via which channels and how long they stay there, the focus of the Search Console is on the activities of the Googlebots. The bot is the web crawler that scans the World Wide Web for new and updated pages and indexes them. In doing so, it follows the links it finds on the web pages. Its visit is therefore a basic prerequisite for a page being found by the Googlebot at all.
The Search Console can be linked to both Google Analytics and Google Ads, so that the data gained there can also be used in other Google services. This data enrichment leads to optimization potential being assessed better and effective measures being taken.
The occasionally noticeable opinion that the Search Console is a light version of Google Analytics is therefore not correct. While Analytics is a nice-to-have, the Search Console is much more of a must-have for webmasters and SEOs.
What does the Google Search Console offer?
The Google Search Console offers a wide range of reports and functions, which can best be explained on the basis of its structure. The data provided goes back up to 16 months and can be filtered, compared and exported.
Performance
- Google search results: reports on search queries, clicks and impressions
- Discover: performance report on Google Discover (only visible above a minimum number of impressions)
Google index
- Page indexing: overview of indexed and excluded pages including the cause of the error.
- Note: The “Coverage” report was renamed “Page indexing” in June 2022 and restructured (top-level breakdown “Indexed” / “Not indexed”).
- Sitemap: submitting and status monitoring of XML sitemaps that facilitate crawling.
- Removals: request to temporarily remove individual URLs from the search index
Improvements
- Core Web Vitals: assessment of the user experience on the basis of actual usage data (loading time, interactivity, visual stability)
- Mobile usability
- Breadcrumbs, FAQ, HowTo and review snippets: information on rich snippets and errors with structured data
Security & Manual Actions
- Manual actions: notices about penalties from Google's web spam team (Search Quality Team). (The Search Quality Evaluators assess search quality in general and do not impose penalties against individual websites.)
- Security issues: notices about security problems such as hacked pages
Previous tools and reports
- International targeting: This report was removed from the Search Console at the end of September 2022. Country targeting via the GSC is no longer possible; hreflang continues to be evaluated directly on the pages.
- Crawl stats: reports on the crawling intensity of the Googlebots over the last 90 days
- Messages: overview of all messages about the property that were submitted before May 23, 2019
- URL parameters: The URL parameter tool was shut down on April 26, 2022 and is no longer available; Google now determines the handling of parameters automatically.
- Links: overview of incoming links from internal and external sources
Additional tools
- Data Highlighter
- robots.txt report: The old robots.txt tester was shut down on December 12, 2023 and replaced by the robots.txt report (under Settings).
URL inspection is one of the central tools of the Search Console: it enables a live test of a URL, shows the rendered HTML and the indexing status, and allows you to specifically submit a page via “Request indexing”
How is the Google Search Console activated?
The prerequisite for using the Search Console is – as with all other Google services – the central Google account. If you already have one, the Google Search Console can be activated in just a few steps:
- If you don't have one yet, create a central Google account.
- Open the Google Search Console and log in with your Google account.
- Add a property – that is, a website – by specifying the domain or the exact URL prefix.
- Confirm ownership of the property by choosing one of the following verification methods:
- Upload an HTML file
- Embed an HTML tag
- Make a DNS entry with the domain host
- Use the tracking code from Google Analytics
- Use the container snippet in Google Tag Manager
Depending on the verification method chosen, it takes some time until the Search Console is ready for use. It goes fastest when the HTML file is uploaded, for which FTP access is necessary.
Since Google regularly checks whether the confirmation of ownership is still valid, the verification measures you have carried out must be maintained. So, for example, the uploaded HTML file must not be deleted.
After Google has been able to establish ownership, the Search Console is ready for use. However, there is still hardly any usable data available, because Google only now begins to collect and process it on a larger scale.
How is the Google Search Console used?
The Search Console is a comprehensive tool that enables in-depth analyses and numerous settings. Below, a few basic examples of use are given for which every ambitious webmaster or SEO should use the Search Console.
- Keeping an eye on warnings and penalties
Google uses the Search Console to inform operators about unusual activity on the website. This can, for example, be malware that is being spread via the site. Webmasters should regularly check whether there are security problems with the website and fix them as quickly as possible so that the website is not removed from the index. As a rule, Google also informs Search Console users by email in the event of serious problems.
- Monitoring and improving the crawling and indexing of the website
The prerequisite for appearing in the search results is the successful crawling of the website. Indexing can be promoted, for example, by submitting an XML sitemap. Through it, Google also finds pages that are not yet linked.
The robots.txt can be viewed in the Search Console (via the robots.txt report under Settings) and a re-crawl can be requested, but it cannot be “configured” – the file continues to be maintained in the root directory of the website. The old robots.txt tester was shut down on December 12, 2023. Using the robots.txt, specific pages can be excluded from crawling, such as the privacy policy.
- Getting updated pages indexed faster
It can take a while until the crawler notices and indexes changes on a web page. To speed up this process, Google can be asked via the Search Console to index URLs as quickly as possible (URL inspection > Request indexing).
- Analyzing search traffic
While with Google Analytics the keywords are not shown in 98 percent of cases (“not provided”), the Search Console states exactly which search queries generate how many clicks and impressions. However, the keywords here are not linked to visitor activities. Because that is precisely what is not allowed for data protection reasons.
Nevertheless, the statistics on the search results – which also include, for example, information on the countries of origin and the devices used – provide valuable insight into how the traffic is composed and which content evidently resonates best.
- Identifying keyword cannibalization
By filtering for certain keywords, you can check whether keywords are cannibalizing each other. The algorithm is then unable to assess which page is more relevant for a search query. To do this, clicks, impressions and average position are activated in the search results report and filtered by the keyword.
The closer the KPIs are to each other, the more this points to a cannibalization effect.
With additional tools, GSC data can be backed up and evaluated beyond the 16-month limit: the bulk data export to BigQuery and the connection to DataStudio.
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