Google Search Console: Complete Guide

Setting Up

Choose a property type. Google’s property help offers two:

Property	Covers	Verification
Domain	"all subdomains (m, www, and so on) and multiple protocols (http, https, ftp)"	DNS record only
URL-prefix	"only URLs with the specified prefix, including the protocol (http/https)"	Several methods

A Domain property gives the whole picture; a URL-prefix property is useful when you need data for one section or protocol. Some tools work only with URL-prefix properties, the disavow tool among them; see toxic links and disavow.

Verify ownership. Google’s verification help lists methods including HTML file upload, HTML tag, Google Analytics tracking code, Google Tag Manager, a Google Sites or Blogger account, and your domain name provider. Keep the verification in place; removing the file or tag can end verification.

Add users with the access they need, and submit your sitemap (below).

Performance Report

The Performance report shows clicks, impressions, CTR and average position, which Google defines as:

• CTR: “The click count divided by the impression count.”
• Average position: “The average position of the topmost result from your site.”

You can filter and compare by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date, and switch search type between web, image, video and news. Points that change how you read it:

• The 24-hour view shows recent data by hour; Google says its data points “include preliminary data”, and hourly granularity is “available only in the 24-hour view”.
• AI features are inside the Web totals. Google’s AI features documentation says sites appearing in AI features “are included in the overall search traffic in Search Console”, reported “in the Performance report, within the ‘Web’ search type.” Separate generative AI reports show impressions in those features; see AI Overviews.

Using the data for snippet work is covered in CTR optimization, and for monitoring changes in SERP volatility.

Page Indexing Report

The report formerly called Index Coverage is now the Page indexing report. It “shows how many URLs on your site have been crawled and indexed by Google”, with each URL either indexed or not indexed and a reason for the second. Google’s guidance on reading it:

• “Don’t expect every URL on your site to be indexed. Some URLs might be duplicates or might not contain meaningful information.”
• “Non-indexed URLs can be fine. Read and understand the specific reason for each non-indexed URL” to confirm the page shouldn’t be indexed.
• For a small site, Google notes that “If your site has fewer than 500 pages, you probably don’t need to use this report”, and suggests checking key pages with searches instead.

Reasons you’ll see include pages excluded by noindex, blocked by robots.txt, redirected, not found, and duplicates. Two duplicate statuses are easy to confuse: “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” means the page declared no canonical and Google chose another URL, while “Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user” means Google overrode the canonical you set. Canonical handling is covered in canonical tags.

You can filter the report to the URLs in a submitted sitemap to see how many of those are indexed.

URL Inspection Tool

The URL Inspection tool “provides information about Google’s indexed version of a specific page, and also allows you to test whether a URL might be indexable.” Use it to:

• see whether a URL is indexed, and if not, why;
• see the canonical Google selected, which “You can determine … only in the indexed data”;
• run a live test of the current page;
• request indexing after changes.

Two limits: the default view “is not a live test”, showing the most recently indexed version, and “There is a daily limit to how many index requests you can submit. If you want many pages indexed, try submitting a sitemap to Google.”

Sitemaps Report

Submit sitemaps here and check whether Google could read them and how many URLs it found. Google’s sitemap guidance says “Google ignores <priority> and <changefreq> values”, so keep lastmod accurate instead of filling in those fields. For how many sitemap URLs are indexed, use the sitemap filter in the Page indexing report. Building sitemaps is covered in XML sitemaps.

Experience Reports

The Core Web Vitals report groups URLs by field performance for LCP, INP and CLS on mobile and desktop; see Core Web Vitals. Search Console’s Mobile Usability report no longer exists; test mobile pages with Lighthouse or browser tools.

Enhancement Reports

When Google finds supported structured data, Search Console shows a report for that rich result type, with valid items, warnings and errors. Use them with the Rich Results Test when adding or changing markup.

Links Report

The Links report shows top linked pages, top linking sites and top linking text. It’s a sample: Google says it “isn’t a comprehensive list of every link on your site”, and “Tables are limited to 1,000 rows”. See link audit.

Security and Manual Actions

The Manual actions report shows any action a Google reviewer has taken against the site, and the Security issues report shows hacking or malware Google detected. Both need immediate attention; see manual actions.

Settings

Settings hold users and permissions, ownership verification, the crawl stats report, change of address for site moves, and associations with other Google products. The crawl stats report shows how Googlebot requests your site, response codes and host problems; see how Google crawls and indexes websites.

Settings also hold the Search generative AI control, a property-level choice to include or exclude your site’s links and content in Search generative AI features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode. Inclusion is the default, and a property with a parent property inherits the parent’s choice unless you change it. Excluding the site doesn’t remove it from the rest of Search; how the control fits with snippet controls and Google-Extended is covered in the AI Overviews guide linked in the Performance section above.

A Routine That Uses It

Interval	Check
Weekly	Performance by page and query; Page indexing changes; security and manual actions
After releases	URL Inspection live tests on changed templates; 24-hour view
Monthly	Core Web Vitals; enhancement reports; Links report; sitemaps

Before reading a traffic drop on one page, check in URL Inspection which canonical Google selected; Search Console assigns page metrics to the canonical URL, so the clicks may now be reported under a different URL.