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Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a tool that allows website owners and developers to view their site’s status in Google Search.

What is Google Search Console?

With the free web service Google Search Console, website owners gain direct insight into how their website appears in Google Search and is processed by Google.

Which search terms do people use to find the website? What are its average rankings? How often is it viewed and clicked on? Which pages has Google indexed, which hasn’t—and what reasons does Google give for this? These are typical questions that Google Search Console answers.

In addition, the tool reports technical issues, indexing problems, or security issues such as malware.

Where did Google Search Console originate?

Google has offered the tool since 2006, when it was still known as “Webmaster Tools.” In 2015, it was renamed “Search Console,” and the capabilities of the web service were significantly expanded at that time.

With this tool, Google aimed to help website owners make their sites search engine-friendly, because better websites mean better search results—which is in the interest of everyone involved.

Why is Google Search Console important?

Google Search Console assists with a wide range of tasks, including monitoring, maintenance, and troubleshooting. Without this tool, you’d often be left in the dark. It’s not about what’s happening on the website itself, but rather what’s going on at the search engine level.

It provides information on:

Performance metrics such as clicks, impressions, average positions in search results, and the search queries that led users to the site.

Page indexing and any existing errors or reasons preventing pages from being indexed.

Error messages regarding security issues such as malware, as well as indications of manual actions or crawling problems.

Details on Core Web Vitals, supported structured data, and how Google parses specific URLs.

In addition, website operators can submit their XML sitemap here, which helps Google discover important URLs on the website.

Advantages

  • Search Console is free.
  • It provides data directly from Google regarding your visibility in Google Search—data that external tools cannot provide in this format.
  • It reveals the search terms for which a website is found.
  • It provides early warnings about technical issues and highlights opportunities.

Challenges

The sheer volume of data and information can be a bit overwhelming at first, and interpreting it requires some familiarization. Some of the reported errors are difficult to fix without in-depth technical knowledge.

Additionally, Google Search Console only shows what’s happening with the website as it relates to the Google search engine. Other analytics tools are needed to get a complete picture of user behavior on the website.

Example

A new, well-designed page listing a company’s services isn’t getting any visitors via Google Search. A quick look at Google Search Console is all it takes. The page was excluded from crawling due to a technical error and therefore couldn’t be processed correctly by Google.

Once the error is fixed, the page will be crawled and indexed by Google. From then on, it can appear in search results for relevant search queries.

Related terms

Indexing Indexing is the process of adding a website or a newly created page to a search engine’s directory. XML Sitemap An XML sitemap is a structured file containing all the important URLs of a website, which helps search engines navigate the site. CTR (Click-Through Rate) The click-through rate (CTR) indicates how often viewing an ad or a search result results in a click. Core Web Vitals Core Web Vitals are Google’s metrics for measuring how user-friendly websites are in terms of loading times, interactivity, and visual stability.