How to use Google Search Console: a complete guide

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that shows how your website performs in Google Search. It tells you which searches your pages appear for, how often people click, which pages Google has indexed, and what is stopping the rest.

Analytics tools tell you what visitors do after they land on your site. Search Console tells you what happens before the click: the searches, the impressions and your position in the results. If you want more people to find you on Google, this is where you start.

What you can do with it

• See the exact search queries that bring people to your site
• Check whether a page is indexed, and ask Google to crawl it
• Submit sitemaps so new pages are discovered faster
• Find and fix indexing, speed and security problems
• See which sites link to you

Before you start

You need three things. Setting everything up takes about ten minutes.

1. A Google account. Use a shared company account if more than one person will manage the site.
2. Access to your domain’s DNS settings (where you bought your domain, such as GoDaddy, Namecheap or Cloudflare). This is the easiest way to verify.
3. Your sitemap URL. Most sites have one at yourwebsite.com/sitemap.xml. WordPress, Shopify, Webflow and most site builders create it for you.

Step 1: Add your website

Go to search.google.com/search-console, sign in, and choose Add property. Google offers two property types.

Step 2: Verify that you own the site

Google needs proof that the site is yours before it shows you any data. For a Domain property, you add a short TXT record to your DNS.

1. After you enter your domain, Search Console shows a TXT record that starts with google-site-verification=. Copy it.
2. Open your domain provider’s DNS settings and add a new TXT record. Leave the host or name field as @ (or blank), and paste the value.
3. Save, go back to Search Console and click Verify.

Step 3: Submit your sitemap

A sitemap is a file that lists the pages you want Google to find. Submitting it helps Google discover new and updated pages faster, especially on a new site with few links pointing to it.

1. In the left menu, open Indexing → Sitemaps.
2. Type your sitemap’s path, usually sitemap.xml or sitemap_index.xml.
3. Click Submit. After Google reads it, the status changes to Success and shows how many pages it found.

You only need to submit a sitemap once. Google checks it again on its own. Resubmit it only if you move it to a new address.

Step 4: Read the Performance report

This is the report you will use most. Open Performance → Search results. It can take a few days for data to appear on a new property, and the report keeps up to 16 months of history.

The four metrics

How to slice the data

• Queries shows the searches you appear for. This is your list of topics.
• Pages shows which pages earn the clicks. Click a page, then switch to Queries to see what it ranks for.
• Countries and Devices show where and how people search. Useful if you serve specific cities or markets.
• Date → Compare puts two periods side by side, so you can see what grew and what dropped.

Step 5: Check a single page with URL Inspection

Paste any URL from your site into the search bar at the top of Search Console. Google tells you whether that page is indexed, when it was last crawled, and whether it found any problems.

If you just published or updated an important page, click Request indexing. It doesn’t guarantee anything, and there is a daily limit, so save it for pages that matter. Test live URL checks the page as it is right now, which is useful right after you fix something.

Step 6: Fix indexing problems in the Pages report

Open Indexing → Pages. The chart splits your URLs into Indexed and Not indexed, and the table underneath lists the reason for every page that isn’t.

Many “not indexed” pages are fine. Redirects and duplicate versions are supposed to stay out of Google. Here is how to read the common reasons:

After you fix a group of pages, open that reason and click Validate fix. Google rechecks the pages and emails you the result.

Step 7: Check the Experience and Links reports

Core Web Vitals

Under Experience → Core Web Vitals, Google groups your pages into Good, Needs improvement and Poor, separately for mobile and desktop. It is based on data from real Chrome users, so small sites may not have enough traffic to see a report yet.

Links

The Links report, near the bottom of the left menu, shows your most-linked pages, the sites that link to you most, and your internal links. Pages with few internal links are often the ones Google crawls least. Link to them from your strongest pages.

Security and manual actions

Check Security & Manual actions once a month. Both should say no issues were detected. If one doesn’t, fix it first, because it can remove pages from Google entirely.

Turn your data into quick wins

Setting up Search Console is the easy part. The value is in what you do with the data. These four plays use the Performance report, and each one takes about fifteen minutes.

^(who|what|why|how|when|where|which|can|does|is)\b

A 15-minute weekly routine

• Monday: Compare clicks with last week. Note any page that rose or fell sharply.
• Every new post: Inspect the URL and request indexing.
• Every two weeks: Run plays 1 and 2 on your top 10 pages.
• Monthly: Check Pages, Core Web Vitals and Security & Manual actions.
• Quarterly: Run play 4 and refresh the posts that are slipping.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Verifying only www or only the non-www version with a URL-prefix property, then wondering where half the data went.
• Requesting indexing for every page, every day. It doesn’t speed things up, and the daily limit runs out.
• Panicking about every “Not indexed” page. Redirects, duplicates and deleted pages are meant to be excluded.
• Looking at clicks alone. Rising impressions often come weeks before rising clicks.
• Setting it up once and never opening it again. The data is only useful if it changes what you write next.

Frequently asked questions