How to Use Google Search Console

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools) is a free service that lets you monitor and optimize your site's presence in Google search results. Unlike Google Analytics, which tracks visitor behavior on the site, Search Console shows how Google sees your site - which pages are indexed, which queries you appear for, and whether there are technical issues.

Every site owner should use Google Search Console. It is a direct communication channel with Google that gives you insights no other tool can provide.

How to set up Google Search Console

Step 1: Add a property

Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with a Google account. Click "Add property" and choose the type:

• Domain property: Covers all variants of your domain (with and without www, http and https, all subdomains). Requires DNS verification.
• URL prefix property: Covers only a specific URL variant (e.g. https://www.yoursite.com). Offers more verification options.

The recommendation is to use Domain property because it covers all variants automatically and provides the most complete data.

Step 2: Verify ownership

For Domain property, you need to add a TXT record in your domain's DNS settings. In cPanel, go to Zone Editor, add a TXT record with the value Search Console provides, and wait for DNS propagation (can take up to 24 hours).

For URL prefix property, the easiest method is to add an HTML file to the site or an HTML meta tag in the header section. WordPress users can use Yoast SEO or Rank Math for automatic verification.

Performance report

This is the most important report in Search Console. It shows four key metrics:

Total clicks: How many times users clicked your site in search results. This is a direct indicator of how much traffic Google sends to your site.

Total impressions: How many times your site appeared in search results, whether or not the user clicked. A high number of impressions with low clicks signals an issue with the title tag or meta description.

Average CTR (Click-Through Rate): The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click. Average CTR for position 1 on Google is about 28%, position 2 is 15%, and position 3 is 11%.

Average position: The average position where your site appears across all queries. This metric helps you track SEO progress over time.

Filtering data

You can filter data by queries (keywords), pages, countries, devices (desktop/mobile), and dates. For example, filter by country "United Kingdom" to see only that market's traffic, or by device "Mobile" to check mobile performance.

Indexing pages

Pages report

This report shows which pages are successfully indexed and which have issues. Pages are split into two categories: indexed (available in Google search) and not indexed (with the reason why).

Common reasons for non-indexing:

• Crawled - currently not indexed: Google visited the page but decided not to index it. This usually means the content is not high quality or unique enough.
• Discovered - currently not indexed: Google knows the page exists but has not visited it yet. This is normal for new pages.
• Blocked by robots.txt: The robots.txt file blocks Google from accessing the page. Check that you have not accidentally blocked important pages.
• Noindex tag: The page has a meta robots noindex tag telling Google not to index it.

URL Inspection tool

This tool lets you check the status of any URL on your site. Enter a URL and you will see whether it is indexed, when it was last visited, whether it has mobile issues, and how Google sees the page. You can also request reindexing if you recently made changes.

Submitting a sitemap

A sitemap is an XML file that lists all pages on your site and helps Google find and index them more efficiently. WordPress automatically generates a sitemap at yoursite.com/wp-sitemap.xml, and SEO plugins like Yoast generate optimized sitemaps.

To submit the sitemap: go to Sitemaps in the left Search Console menu, enter the sitemap URL (typically /sitemap_index.xml for Yoast or /wp-sitemap.xml for WordPress) and click Submit. Google will start processing your sitemap and indexing pages.

Check sitemap status regularly - Search Console shows how many pages from the sitemap are successfully indexed and whether there are errors.

Core Web Vitals report

Core Web Vitals are three metrics Google uses to measure user experience (you can check them with our speed test tool):

• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): Time to load the largest element on the page. Goal: under 2.5 seconds.
• INP (Interaction to Next Paint): Site responsiveness to user interactions. Goal: under 200ms.
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): Visual stability - how much elements move during loading. Goal: under 0.1.

Search Console splits pages into three buckets: Good, Needs Improvement, and Poor. Focus first on pages in Poor because they have the biggest negative impact on rankings. Quality LiteSpeed-optimized hosting can significantly improve these metrics.

Security issues and manual actions

Search Console notifies you if Google detects security issues on your site (malware, phishing, hacked pages) or if your site received a manual action for violating Google's guidelines. Check these reports regularly - a fast response to security issues minimizes damage to rankings and reputation.

Conclusion

Google Search Console is an indispensable tool for anyone who wants to understand how Google sees their site and how to improve search visibility. Set it up today, submit a sitemap, monitor performance, and regularly check indexing and Core Web Vitals. Data from Search Console is the foundation of any SEO strategy and helps you make decisions based on facts, not assumptions.