Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free service from Google that shows how your website performs in Google Search. It tells you which queries show your pages, how often people click, which pages Google has indexed and what problems it found.

You do not need Search Console to appear in Google, but it is the only place to get this data from Google itself. Every site that cares about organic search should have it set up.

Who is Google Search Console for?

Google names four groups: business owners, SEO specialists and marketers, site administrators and web developers. Marketers use it to find queries with many impressions but few clicks. Developers use it to fix indexing and structured data errors. Site admins use it to catch server errors, hacking and malware.

How do you set up Search Console?

You add a property and prove you own it. A Domain property covers every subdomain and protocol and is verified with a DNS record. A URL-prefix property covers only URLs that start with the exact address you enter, such as one subfolder, and can be verified in more ways. Creators can also add platform properties for Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts, a feature Google is rolling out gradually.

What are the main reports in Search Console?

Performance

The Performance report shows clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position. You can group the data by queries, pages, countries, devices, search appearance and dates, and filter by search type: web (text or multimodal searches such as Google Lens), image, video and news. A 24-hour view shows hourly, preliminary data. Google says clicks and impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode count towards the Web search type.

Page indexing and URL Inspection

The Page indexing report, which replaced the old Coverage report, shows which pages Google can find and index and gives a reason for every page it left out. URL Inspection shows Google's indexed version of a single page, can run a live test and lets you request indexing after you publish or update content.

Sitemaps and Removals

You can submit an XML sitemap and see whether Google could read it. The Removals tool temporarily hides URLs from search results.

Experience and enhancements

The Core Web Vitals report groups your URLs by real-user page experience metrics on mobile and desktop. Enhancement reports flag structured data errors that can keep pages from showing as rich results. Our post on Core Web Vitals explains the metrics.

Links, manual actions and security

The Links report shows a sample of the sites that link to you and your most linked pages. Search Console also alerts you to manual actions and security issues such as hacked content.

How much does Search Console cost?

Nothing. Search Console is free for any site you can verify, and one Google account can manage up to 1,000 properties. Report tables show up to 1,000 rows; for more, you can schedule a daily bulk export of performance data to BigQuery.

What do users say about Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is rated 4.7 out of 5 on G2 from 517 reviews at the time of checking. G2's summary says users value its insights for monitoring search performance, the accuracy of first-party data, keyword and ranking insights and a user-friendly interface.

The common complaints are data limits, such as the 1,000-row cap in the interface and the retention period, data that is delayed rather than real time, and a learning curve for beginners.

When should you add another tool?

• You want to know what visitors do on your site. Pair it with Google Analytics.
• You want competitor keywords and backlinks. Search Console only covers your own site, so add Semrush or Ahrefs.
• You want a full technical crawl. Use a crawler such as Screaming Frog SEO Spider.

For a step-by-step approach, read our guide to a technical SEO audit or see the Search Console glossary entry.