SEO Tools & Strategy
Whether you're diagnosing why pages aren't appearing in search results, identifying which keywords drive traffic, or tracking how Google's algorithm updates affect your site, Search Console provides the data you need. According to a Google and Wix case study, websites connected to Search Console see an average 15% increase in organic traffic, with e-commerce sites experiencing a 24% monthly increase in gross product value.
Google Search Console is a free web service provided by Google that helps website owners monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot their website's presence in Google Search results. It provides tools and reports for understanding how Google views your site, including indexing status, search performance data, and technical issues affecting visibility. For businesses serious about SEO, GSC is the foundational tool that reveals what's working, what's broken, and where the opportunities lie.
This guide covers everything from initial setup to advanced features, including the significant 2024-2025 updates that have transformed how SEO professionals use the platform. At Whitehat SEO, we use Search Console daily as part of our comprehensive SEO strategy work—it's the starting point for every audit and the ongoing monitor for every campaign.
Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools until May 2015) is Google's official free platform for website owners to understand how their site performs in search. Unlike Google Analytics, which tracks what users do on your site, Search Console shows you what happens before they arrive—how Google crawls your pages, which queries trigger your listings, and what technical issues might be holding you back.
Search Console serves two primary functions. First, it's a diagnostic tool: you can see exactly which pages Google has indexed, identify crawl errors, check mobile usability, and receive alerts about security issues or manual penalties. Second, it's a performance analytics platform: you can track impressions, clicks, click-through rates, and average position for every keyword and page combination.
| Aspect | Google Search Console | Google Analytics (GA4) |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Search visibility & indexing | User behaviour on-site |
| Data source | Google Search only | All traffic sources |
| Shows keywords | Yes, all search queries | Limited (requires linking) |
| Historical data | 16 months | 14 months (standard) |
| Technical SEO | Extensive (crawl, index, Core Web Vitals) | Limited |
| Best for | SEO performance & troubleshooting | Conversion tracking & user journeys |
For comprehensive SEO reporting best practices, you need both tools working together. Search Console tells you which keywords bring visitors; Analytics tells you what those visitors do next. The integration between GSC and GA4 bridges this gap, which we'll cover in detail later.
Google recommends Search Console for anyone who wants their website to appear in search results. Specifically:
The platform is entirely free, with no premium tier or paid features. Google provides it because better-optimised websites create a better search experience for users—a genuine win-win.
Setting up Search Console involves two steps: adding your property (website) and verifying ownership. The process takes 5-15 minutes depending on your verification method, though DNS verification may require waiting for propagation.
When you first access Search Console at search.google.com/search-console, you'll choose between two property types. This choice is important—it affects what data you'll see.
| Property Type | What It Covers | Verification Required |
|---|---|---|
| Domain Property | All URLs across all subdomains (www, blog, shop), all protocols (http, https), and all paths | DNS record only |
| URL-Prefix Property | Only URLs matching the exact prefix you enter (e.g., only https://www.example.com/) | Multiple options available |
Whitehat SEO recommends Domain properties for most websites. They provide the most comprehensive data view, aggregating all variations of your domain automatically. This is especially important for sites with subdomains (like a separate blog.yoursite.com) or legacy HTTP pages.
Verification proves to Google that you own or manage the website. The available methods depend on your property type:
For Domain Properties (DNS verification required):
For URL-Prefix Properties:
Once verified, Search Console begins collecting data immediately. However, you'll only see historical data from that point forward—it doesn't retroactively import data from before verification. This is why setting up GSC early is essential, even if you don't plan to actively use it right away.
Need help with the technical setup? Our guide on how to add users to Google Search Console covers team access configuration once your property is verified.
The Performance report is Search Console's most valuable feature for SEO. It shows how your site appears in Google Search results, which queries trigger your pages, and how users interact with your listings. Understanding these metrics is fundamental to any keyword research strategy.
| Metric | Definition | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks | Number of times users clicked through to your site from search results | Direct measure of search traffic |
| Impressions | Number of times your site appeared in search results (whether scrolled into view or not) | Indicates visibility and keyword coverage |
| CTR | Click-through rate = Clicks ÷ Impressions | Shows how compelling your listing is |
| Position | Average ranking position in search results (1 = top) | Tracks ranking progress over time |
You can break down performance data by several dimensions:
Search Console tracks performance across different Google properties:
Important note on AI Overviews: As of 2025, clicks from Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted within the "Web" search type. They're not separately filterable—all links appearing in a single AI Overview show as position 1. This means your position data may look artificially high for queries where you're cited in AI summaries.
Search Console supports powerful filtering including regular expressions (regex). This allows you to analyse specific keyword groups, URL patterns, or content types. For example, filtering queries containing "how to" shows all informational intent searches, while a regex filter for "/blog/.*seo" would show all blog posts with "seo" in the URL.
Mastering these filters is essential for turning raw data into actionable insights. When conducting a comprehensive SEO audit, we use filtered reports extensively to identify opportunities within specific content categories.
The Page Indexing report (formerly called Index Coverage) shows which of your pages Google has indexed, which it's excluded, and why. Understanding this report is crucial for diagnosing visibility issues and ensuring your important content appears in search.
| Status | Meaning | Action Required |
|---|---|---|
| Valid | Page is indexed and can appear in search | None—this is the goal |
| Valid with warnings | Indexed, but GSC detected issues worth reviewing | Review warnings; fix if impacting important pages |
| Excluded | Not indexed, usually by design or Google's choice | Verify exclusions are intentional |
| Error | Could not be indexed due to a problem | Fix immediately—these are blocking issues |
Understanding why pages are excluded helps you determine whether action is needed:
These indexing issues are among the most common technical SEO mistakes to avoid. Addressing them often yields quick ranking improvements.
The URL Inspection tool lets you check the index status of any specific URL. It shows:
Critically, you can also "Request indexing" for new or updated pages. While this doesn't guarantee faster indexing, it adds the URL to Google's priority crawl queue. Limit this to genuinely important updates—excessive requests may be ignored.
Pro tip: The "Live URL Test" button shows how Googlebot sees your page right now, including JavaScript-rendered content. This is invaluable for diagnosing issues where content appears for users but not for search engines.
Core Web Vitals are Google's standardised metrics for measuring user experience. Since 2021, they've been a ranking factor, making the Search Console Core Web Vitals report essential for SEO. The report shows how your pages perform based on real user data from the Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX).
| Metric | What It Measures | Good | Needs Work | Poor |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| LCP Largest Contentful Paint |
Loading speed—when main content becomes visible | ≤2.5s | 2.5-4s | >4s |
| INP Interaction to Next Paint |
Responsiveness—how quickly page responds to user actions | ≤200ms | 200-500ms | >500ms |
| CLS Cumulative Layout Shift |
Visual stability—how much content shifts during loading | ≤0.1 | 0.1-0.25 | >0.25 |
2024 Update: INP (Interaction to Next Paint) officially replaced FID (First Input Delay) as a Core Web Vital in March 2024. INP measures responsiveness across all interactions during a page visit, not just the first one. If you still see FID references in older documentation, they're outdated.
The Core Web Vitals report in Search Console groups your URLs by status (Good, Needs Improvement, Poor) based on the 75th percentile of user experiences. This means a page is only marked "Good" if 75% of visits meet the thresholds—not just average performance.
Improving Core Web Vitals often requires technical changes to hosting, code efficiency, and resource loading. For B2B websites, our Core Web Vitals guide for B2B provides specific recommendations.
Google has significantly enhanced Search Console throughout 2024 and 2025. These updates transform how SEO professionals analyse and act on search data. Here are the most impactful additions:
The most significant recent update allows users to build Performance reports using natural language queries. Instead of manually selecting filters and dimensions, you can type queries like "show me mobile clicks for blog posts last month" and Search Console will configure the report automatically. This dramatically speeds up analysis for both beginners and experts.
Search Console now automatically identifies variations of your brand name and lets you filter performance data by branded vs. non-branded queries. This is crucial for understanding true organic SEO performance—branded searches (where people already know you) behave very differently from non-branded discovery searches.
You can now add contextual notes directly to performance charts. Each annotation allows up to 120 characters—enough to note "launched new homepage design" or "Google core update". This creates an invaluable historical record for correlating traffic changes with site updates or algorithm shifts.
Query groups automatically cluster similar search queries together, including misspellings, phrasing variations, and synonyms. Instead of analysing "hubspot crm setup" and "setting up hubspot crm" separately, you can now see aggregated performance for the intent behind these queries.
Search Console now offers hourly granularity for performance data with exportable reports. This is particularly valuable for time-sensitive content, breaking news publishers, or diagnosing sudden traffic drops.
A new feature allows unified viewing of website search performance alongside social media profile performance. This helps marketers understand how social presence influences search visibility—particularly relevant as Google increasingly features social profiles in branded searches.
Search Console Insights—the content-centric performance dashboard—has been integrated directly into the main Search Console interface. This surfaces your best-performing content, trending topics, and traffic sources without leaving GSC.
Linking Search Console with Google Analytics 4 combines search performance data with on-site behaviour analysis. This integration provides the complete picture: which keywords drive traffic (GSC) and what that traffic does on your site (GA4).
Once linked, you'll access GSC data within GA4 under Reports > Acquisition > Search Console. Available reports include:
You'll likely notice discrepancies between GSC clicks and GA4 sessions. This is normal and happens because:
Expect roughly 10-30% variance. Larger discrepancies may indicate tracking implementation issues worth investigating. This data integration work is part of the website audit services Whitehat SEO provides.
Here's how to diagnose and resolve the most frequent problems SEO professionals encounter in Search Console:
"Crawled – currently not indexed" is the most common indexing issue. Google found your page but chose not to add it to the index. Solutions include:
404 errors appear when Google tries to access URLs that don't exist. While some 404s are normal (deleted pages), problematic ones occur when:
Fix by: implementing 301 redirects to relevant pages, updating internal links, or using the Removals tool to deprioritise truly deleted content that keeps being recrawled.
A soft 404 occurs when a page returns a 200 (OK) status code but displays error-like content (e.g., "No results found" or an empty page). Search Console flags these because they waste crawl budget and confuse indexing.
Fix by: either returning a proper 404 status code, redirecting to a relevant page, or adding real content if the page should exist.
This occurs when your robots.txt file prevents Googlebot from accessing pages. Common causes include overly broad disallow rules or leftover staging site configurations.
Fix by: reviewing your robots.txt at yoursite.com/robots.txt, removing or adjusting rules blocking important content, and waiting for Google to recrawl.
Based on Whitehat SEO's experience managing Search Console for hundreds of client websites, here are the practices that deliver the best results:
Search Console only stores 16 months of data, and it doesn't backfill before verification. Even if you're not planning active SEO work immediately, verify your property now. Future you will thank past you when you need historical baseline data.
Given the 48-hour data delay, daily monitoring is counterproductive. Weekly checks catch issues before they compound; monthly deep-dives inform strategy adjustments. Set a recurring calendar reminder.
Filter for keywords where you rank positions 4-10 with decent impressions. These are close to page one—small improvements often yield significant traffic gains. Target these with on-page SEO optimisation efforts.
Use the Sitemaps report to submit your XML sitemap. This helps Google discover your pages faster and shows you how many submitted URLs are actually indexed. A large gap between submitted and indexed URLs indicates content quality or technical issues.
With the new annotation feature, document every significant change: site launches, content updates, technical fixes, and algorithm update dates. This transforms Search Console from a reporting tool into an institutional knowledge base.
Even if everything seems fine, periodically check the Security Issues and Manual Actions reports. These problems can tank your visibility overnight, and Google only notifies you within Search Console.
Since GSC only retains 16 months of data, regularly export key metrics to your own systems. This enables year-over-year comparisons and long-term trend analysis that Search Console alone can't provide. Your content-driven SEO strategy depends on this historical perspective.
Yes, Google Search Console is completely free with no premium tier or paid features. Google provides it because better-optimised websites improve the search experience for users. All features, including performance reports, URL inspection, and Core Web Vitals data, are available at no cost.
Search Console data typically appears within 48 hours of collection. For newly verified properties, you'll see data begin populating within a few days. Historical data from before verification is not available—Search Console only collects data from the point of verification forward.
Navigate to Sitemaps in the left menu, enter your sitemap URL (typically /sitemap.xml), and click Submit. Google will process the sitemap and begin crawling the URLs it contains. You can monitor submission status and see how many URLs were discovered and indexed.
Common reasons include: content Google deems low-quality or duplicate ("Crawled – currently not indexed"), robots.txt blocking, noindex meta tags, slow server response, or insufficient internal/external links. Check the Page Indexing report for specific exclusion reasons and use URL Inspection for page-level diagnostics.
This status means Google found and crawled your page but chose not to add it to the search index. Google considers the page's content insufficient, duplicate, or not valuable enough to warrant indexing. Improving content quality, adding unique value, and building internal links typically resolves this issue.
Use the URL Inspection tool: paste the page URL in the search bar at the top of Search Console, wait for the inspection to complete, then click "Request Indexing." This adds the URL to Google's priority crawl queue. Limit requests to genuinely important new or updated pages.
Discrepancies of 10-30% are normal due to different tracking methods. GSC counts all clicks; GA4 requires JavaScript to fire. Ad blockers, privacy browsers, and users who bounce before tracking loads all cause GA4 to underreport. The platforms also define sessions differently and process data on different timelines.
Search Console retains 16 months of performance data. After this period, older data is permanently deleted. To maintain longer historical records, regularly export data to spreadsheets or analytics platforms. This is essential for year-over-year comparisons and long-term SEO trend analysis.
Manual actions are penalties applied by Google's human reviewers for violating webmaster guidelines—such as unnatural links, thin content, or spam. Check the Manual Actions report in Search Console. If affected, address the specific violation, document your fixes, and submit a reconsideration request through Search Console.
Yes, clicks from Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in Search Console's "Web" search type data. However, they're not separately filterable—you cannot isolate AI Overview traffic from standard search results. All links within a single AI Overview display as position 1 in the data.
Google Search Console is the foundation of effective SEO. It's free, it's essential, and the sooner you set it up, the more historical data you'll have when you need it. Whether you're diagnosing indexing issues, tracking keyword rankings, or monitoring Core Web Vitals, GSC provides the data that informs every optimisation decision.
The 2024-2025 updates—AI-powered configuration, branded query filtering, hourly data, and annotations—have transformed Search Console from a basic monitoring tool into a sophisticated SEO analytics platform. Combined with GA4 integration, it offers the complete picture of your search performance.
At Whitehat SEO, Search Console is where every client engagement begins. It tells us what's working, what's broken, and where the opportunities lie. We use it daily as part of our professional SEO services—and we believe every website owner should too.
Need help getting more from Google Search Console?
Our SEO team can audit your Search Console data, identify quick wins, and build a strategy for sustainable organic growth.
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Whitehat SEO is a London-based HubSpot Diamond Solutions Partner and full-service inbound marketing agency. Since 2011, we've helped B2B companies build sustainable organic growth through ethical, effective SEO strategies.
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