The short answer
Search Console reports clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position for your site in Google Search, plus which pages are indexed and why others are not. Set up a Domain property, check the Performance and Pages reports monthly, and use URL Inspection for single pages. Treat average position and small query counts with caution.
What Search Console is, and what it is not
Search Console is Google's own reporting tool for site owners. It is free, it shows data straight from Google Search, and it reports on your presence in Google only. It does not track visits from other sources, what people do after arriving, or sales. That is the job of Google Analytics 4, and the two will never show identical numbers. See why numbers differ.
Think of it as answering four questions: is Google finding my pages, which pages are stored, when did people see and click my site in search, and what is broken. Everything else is detail.
Setting it up the right way
Adding a site is called adding a property. Google offers two types, and the choice matters.
| Property type | What it covers | How it is verified |
|---|---|---|
| Domain property (example.com) | The root domain, every subdomain, and both http and https versions. Enter the domain without www or a path. | By adding a DNS record at your domain provider. |
| URL-prefix property (https://example.com/) | Only URLs that start with that exact prefix, including the protocol. A separate property is needed for each version or subdomain. | Several methods are offered, such as an HTML file or a tag. |
We usually recommend the Domain property because it avoids gaps, such as missing the www version or old http traffic. Its one drawback is that DNS verification needs access to your DNS settings. If you are not sure who controls those, read who owns your accounts and ask us. Never send us a password to do this. Also make sure you, as the business, are an owner of the property, not only your agency, because properties tied to a former agency's email are a common and avoidable headache.
The Performance report: four metrics, defined exactly
The Performance report is where most people spend their time. Google defines its metrics precisely, and the definitions explain most of the confusion.
- Clicks: how often someone clicked a link from Google to your site. Clicks that stay inside Google, such as refining a search, are not counted.
- Impressions: how often someone saw a link to your site on Google. For results in carousels or expandable sections, the item usually needs to be scrolled into view or expanded to count.
- CTR (click-through rate): clicks divided by impressions. See click-through rate.
- Average position: a relative ranking of your link where 1 is the topmost position. It is the topmost position of your site averaged across the queries where you appeared.
The newest data is preliminary and can change within a few hours. Search Console shows it as a dotted line, and by default the report covers the past three months.
The Pages report and URL Inspection
The Pages report, also called page indexing, lists the URLs Google knows about and splits them into indexed and not indexed, with a reason for each group. Not every URL should be indexed. Pages marked noindex on purpose, redirected URLs and duplicate versions are normal entries. What you watch for is a page you want in search showing up in the not-indexed list. We explain each status in why isn't my page on Google.
URL Inspection answers questions about one page. It shows Google's indexed version, whether the page is on Google, the last crawl and which canonical Google chose. The live test fetches the page right now, which helps confirm a fix, but a passing live test does not guarantee the page will appear in search. Request Indexing asks Google to crawl one URL. Google says indexing usually takes about a day but can take longer, a request guarantees nothing, and daily limits apply.
Common misreadings
- Treating average position as your ranking. It blends many queries, devices and countries. A page ranking 3 for one search and 40 for another may report an average near 20 that describes neither.
- Panicking at falling impressions. Impressions move with season, demand and changes in how Google lays out results. Compare the same period last year, not last week.
- Chasing CTR on its own. A rise in impressions at low positions can lower CTR while your traffic grows.
- Comparing property totals with page totals. Google counts by property when you group by query, so several of your pages appearing for one search collapse into a single top result. By page, each URL is counted separately, which is why CTR and position often look better by property.
- Expecting the numbers to match Analytics. They measure different things from different points in the journey.
- Reading small samples. A query with 12 impressions tells you almost nothing. Look for patterns across many queries and pages.
Data limits to keep in mind
Search Console shows a limited history, so if a year-on-year comparison matters to you, export or screenshot your key reports regularly rather than assuming the data will always be there. Google also does not show every search term: some rare queries are withheld to protect searcher privacy, so the list of queries will not add up to your full click total. Do not worry about the gap, and do not try to fill it with guesses.
Exports have quirks. Values that show as a dash or a tilde in the interface export as zeros, so do not read a zero in a spreadsheet as proof that nothing happened. For heavy reporting, Google offers a bulk export to BigQuery, but it only includes data from the day you set it up, so turn it on early if you will ever need the history.
A monthly five-minute routine
- 1Open Performance and set the range to the last three full months compared with the same three months a year earlier, if available.
- 2Look at clicks and impressions together. Note which pages gained and which lost.
- 3Open Queries and look for terms where impressions are high but clicks are low. Those pages often need a better title or description. See titles and descriptions.
- 4Open Pages and check that no important page has moved into the not-indexed list.
- 5Check Security and manual actions for any message.
- 6Write down one thing you noticed. Patterns matter more than any single month.
Worked example: a drop that was not a drop
Example: The scary chart
A client sees clicks fall from 1,200 to 900 in a month and fears a penalty. Looking closer, the site is a landscaping business and the previous month was spring, its busiest period. Compared with the same month last year, clicks are up 15 percent. Impressions are flat, average position is unchanged, and the manual actions report is empty. Nothing is wrong. The lesson: always compare like with like before concluding anything.
When to ask us
Send a request through the support form if you want access set up, if a Search Console message worries you, or if you see a sudden shift that persists for more than a couple of weeks.
- The message or chart in question, shared as a screenshot link.
- The date range and the report name you were looking at.
- The pages or queries affected.
- Never send passwords. We can arrange access by inviting an email address.
