Google Search Console for beginners
Google Search Console for beginners: how to set it up and verify your site, the Performance and Pages reports, and what indexing statuses mean.
In 30 seconds
- Search Console is Google's free tool showing how your site appears in search.
- The Performance report shows clicks, impressions, CTR and average position, by query and by page.
- The Pages report shows which pages are on Google and why others aren't.
- Data goes back up to 16 months: enough to compare each month with the same month last year.
Google Search Console is Google’s free tool showing how a site appears in Google Search: which searches it shows up for, how often it’s clicked, which pages are indexed and which aren’t (and why), and whether there are technical problems. You set it up with a Google account by adding your site and proving you own it.
If you work in SEO, Search Console is the first tab you open in the morning: it answers the most important question, how does Google see my site?
How to set up Google Search Console
- Go to Search Console with a Google account.
- Add a property, choosing between two types:
| Property type | What it covers | How to verify |
|---|---|---|
Domain (e.g. example.com) |
Everything: www, non-www, http, https, subdomains |
Only with a TXT record in the domain’s DNS |
URL prefix (e.g. https://www.example.com/) |
Only addresses starting that way | HTML file, meta tag, Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager or DNS |
- Prove the site is yours with one of the methods in the table. A domain property is the most complete.
- Submit the sitemap in the Sitemaps section: the address is usually
/sitemap.xmlor/sitemap-index.xml.
Data starts appearing over the following days and stays available for 16 months.
The 4 reports to know first
1. Performance
Shows, for each query and each page:
| Metric | What it means |
|---|---|
| Impressions | How many times the site appeared in results |
| Clicks | How many times someone clicked |
| CTR | Clicks ÷ impressions: how convincing the result is |
| Average position | Where it appears, on average |
You can filter by date, query, page, country, device and search type (web, image, video, news), and compare two periods. Two useful details:
- average position averages every time the site appeared: a page showing in position 2 and position 40 averages 21;
- some very rare queries are hidden for privacy, so the individual queries add up to less than the total.
Since Google started showing AI-generated answers (AI Overviews, in Italy since March 2025, and AI Mode, since October 2025), clicks and impressions from those answers are also counted in the Performance totals.
2. Pages (indexing)
Shows how many pages are on Google and, for the others, the reason. The most common statuses:
| Status | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Excluded by «noindex» tag | The page asks not to be indexed | Fine if intended; if not, remove the noindex |
| Not found (404) | The address doesn’t exist | 301 redirect if the page has moved |
| Page with redirect | The address leads to another | Normal, if the redirect is intended |
| Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user | Google treats another page as the main version | Check canonicals and similar content |
| Crawled – currently not indexed | Google saw it but didn’t add it to the index | Make the content more useful and link to it from other pages |
| Discovered – currently not indexed | Google knows the address but hasn’t visited yet | Usually resolves itself; internal links help |
After fixing a problem you can ask Google to validate the fix. The differences between noindex and canonical are explained in noindex, robots.txt and canonical.
3. URL Inspection
Type a page’s address and see what Google knows about it: whether it’s indexed, when it was last crawled, which canonical it chose. From here you can request indexing for a new or updated page.
4. Core Web Vitals
Groups pages into good, needs improvement and poor, for mobile and desktop. What they measure is explained in Core Web Vitals explained simply.
5. Sitemaps and links
The Sitemaps section shows whether your sitemap was read and how many pages it contains. The Links section shows sites linking to yours and your most linked pages internally.
Search Console vs Google Analytics
| Search Console | Google Analytics 4 | |
|---|---|---|
| What it measures | What happens on Google, before the click | What happens on the site, after the click |
| Main data | Impressions, clicks, CTR, position, indexing | Visits, events, conversions, channels |
| Traffic sources | Google Search only | All (social, email, ads, search…) |
| Needs cookie consent? | No, the data comes from Google | Yes, in Europe, for analytics cookies |
You can link the two, so Google searches also appear in Analytics.
A 10-minute routine
- Performance: clicks and impressions compared with the previous month and the previous year.
- Pages: any new reasons for exclusion?
- Key pages: a quick URL inspection of the two or three pages that sell most.
- Opportunities: queries with lots of impressions and a low CTR, often in positions 5-15. Improving those pages’ title tags and meta descriptions is the fastest way to get more clicks.
An example
At the fictional shop Five Leaf, clicks from Google dropped in October. Performance showed two different causes: searches for iced teas falling (normal, it happens every autumn) and herbal teas almost disappearing. The Pages report explained why: since the theme change, herbal tea pages had a noindex. One real problem and one seasonal one, told apart only by looking at the data.
Peacchy’s SEO Simulation has a search console inspired by Search Console, with these reports and invented but consistent data.
To understand how Google reaches pages before it shows them, read how Google finds pages and how to get indexed.
Sources
A page has 10,000 impressions and 50 clicks. What does that tell you?
Correct! A 0.5% CTR: the page is seen but doesn't convince. Rewriting the title tag and meta description is often enough.
Not quite. 10,000 impressions means it's indexed and appearing: the problem is that few people choose to click.
Frequently asked questions
Does Search Console cost anything?
No, it's free. You only need a Google account and to prove you own the site.
How far back does the data go?
The Performance report shows up to 16 months: enough to compare a month with the same month last year.
Are Search Console and Google Analytics the same thing?
No. Search Console shows what happens on Google, before the click; Analytics shows what happens on your site, after the click. They complement each other.
Topics:SEOGoogleTools