google-search-console

$28

Practice

Why

Focus one metric at a time

Stacked bar charts hide fluctuations; toggle off other metrics to see each clearly

Don't compare just two points

End-of-month vs prior month misses mid-month drama; examine full trend

Check beyond top 10

Many reports default to top 10; scroll or paginate for more rows

Screenshot charts

GSC retains limited history; save images for future reference

Record in spreadsheet

Export at month-end; use formulas to track correlations over time

Track release dates

Join dev standups, read release notes; correlate GSC shifts with deployments

Investigation Workflow

• Pinpoint date: When did the metric change?

• Correlate: Any releases, CMS changes, server maintenance, third-party code?

• Decide: Investigate, correct, overlook, or monitor closely

• Loop in: Product or dev team for root cause

Key Reports & Metrics

1. Performance (Search Results)

Location: Performance ? Search results

Metric

Use

Clicks

Traffic from Google Search

Impressions

How often site appeared in results

CTR

Whether users think page answers query

Average position

Ranking trend

Dimensions: Query, page, country, device, date. Filter by search type: web, image, video, news. Use to find low-CTR high-impression pages (title/meta optimization opportunities).

Search appearance: AMP, blue link, rich results (filterable in UI and API).

#### CTR Benchmarks by Position

Use to compare actual CTR vs expected. Benchmarks vary by SERP features (AI Overviews, featured snippets). Zero-click: When SERP features satisfy intent without a click, organic CTR drops; factor into expectations. See serp-features (Zero-Click section), featured-snippet. Clean SERPs:

Position

Expected CTR (baseline)

With AI Overviews (lower)

1

25-35%

~19%

2

12-18%

~12%

3

8-12%

~7%

4-5

5-7%

~5%

6-10

2-5%

2-5%

Interpretation: If actual CTR is below expected for your position, prioritize title/meta optimization. Over 90% of first-page results have CTR below 10%; significant upside exists.

#### Low CTR, High Impressions: Optimization Workflow

• Identify: Sort by impressions; filter positions 1-10; 1,000+ monthly impressions

• Compare: Actual CTR vs expected for position (see table above)

• Gap: e.g., position 4 at 2% CTR vs expected 5-7% ? ~3-5% uplift potential

• Action: Optimize title and meta per title-tag, meta-description; add schema for rich results (+10–20% clicks)

#### Rich Results & CTR

Pages with review stars, FAQ schema, or other rich snippets see 10-20% more clicks. See schema-markup.

2. Insights Report

Location: Performance ? Insights (or Overview)

Simplified overview; replaces standalone Search Console Insights. Data from GSC only (GA data removed Dec 2024).

Card

Use

Clicks and impressions

Site visibility and click effectiveness

Your content

Top, trending up, trending down pages

Queries leading to your site

Top, trending up, trending down queries

Top countries

Geographic audience

Branded vs non-branded

Brand recognition (AI-labeled; may mislabel)

Additional traffic sources

Image, Video, News search, Discover

Trending: Based on click change vs previous period. Click items to jump to Performance report filtered to that item.

Query groups: Similar queries grouped; group name = best-performing query. Not available for sub-properties or low-impression sites.

3. Page Indexing (Coverage)

Location: Indexing ? Page indexing

Status grouping (updated): Valid + Valid with warning ? Indexed. Error + Excluded ? Not indexed.

Indexed vs Not indexed are complementary: Not all site content should be indexed. Login, admin, duplicate content, legal boilerplate, and low-value pages often intentionally use noindex. Indexed and non-indexed pages can reference each other (e.g., sitemap includes indexable URLs; noindex pages still exist and link internally). Non-indexed is not inherently a problem--investigate only when important pages are excluded. See indexing (noindex usage) and robots-txt (crawl control) for when to exclude.

Metric

Action

Pages indexed

Turn off "Pages not indexed" to view alone; watch for drops

Pages not indexed

Turn off "Pages indexed" to view alone; watch for spikes. Distinguish intentional (noindex, robots) from accidental

Filter: All submitted pages / Unsubmitted pages only (dropdown near top).

Source column: Indicates whether issue is caused by website or Google.

Why pages are not indexed: Drill into reasons and example URLs. Common culprits:

• Duplicate content

• Noindex tags

• Redirect errors

• 5xx errors

• 404 errors

• Blocked by robots.txt

• Discovered ? currently not indexed

• Crawled ? currently not indexed

Quick check: If trend line is stable, spend ~3 seconds; move on. Investigate if fourth column (trend) shifts.

Diagnosis workflow: GSC Coverage ? click Issue ? view sample URLs ? identify pattern ? fix (see indexing for fix actions).

Coverage issue types:

Issue

Meaning

Next step

Crawled - currently not indexed

Crawled but not indexed

See indexing

Excluded by "noindex" tag

Intentionally excluded; often valid (login, admin, legal, etc.)

Ignore if expected; verify important pages not accidentally noindexed

Blocked by robots.txt

Crawl blocked

See robots-txt; may be intentional

Redirect / 404

Redirect or missing

Fix URL or redirect

Duplicate / Canonical

Duplicate content

Usually OK; keep canonical

URL Inspection: Verdicts: "URL is on Google," "URL is on Google, but has issues," "URL is not on Google." Use for important pages; verify canonical, internal links, sitemap; Request indexing if needed.

4. Video Indexing (If Applicable)

Location: Indexing ? Video indexing

• Videos indexed / Videos not indexed: Toggle off the other for clear view

• Why videos are not indexed: Thumbnail blocked, invalid size/format, not in main content, etc.

See video-optimization for video SEO; youtube-seo for YouTube.

5. XML Sitemaps

Location: Indexing ? Sitemaps

Check

Action

Status

Confirm each sitemap says "Success"

URLs indexed

Click sitemap ? see indexed count; drops indicate indexing issues

Bellwether sitemaps

For large sites, monitor templated sitemaps (by country, language, division)

Enterprise: Glitches can block new URL crawling, cause hreflang confusion, delay fresh content discovery.

6. Core Web Vitals

Location: Experience ? Core Web Vitals

Priority: Mobile first (Google's higher expectations for mobile).

Metric

Mobile

Desktop

Good URLs

Target

Secondary

Needs improvement

Fix

Monitor

Poor URLs

Fix

Monitor

Why URLs don't have good score: Click "Open report" → grouped example URLs by issue type. For threshold values and fixes, see core-web-vitals.

Tip: Historical chart is short; export to spreadsheet for longer trends. Share with dev team regularly; correlate dates with releases.

Layout (updated): Two tables--Poor or Need improvement; Good (click "View data about usable pages").

7. Enhancements (Rich Results)

Location: Experience ? Enhancements (Product snippets, Merchant listings under Shopping)

Status (updated): Two-tier?invalid (critical issues, may not appear) vs valid (no critical issues; may still have warnings). Warnings no longer top-level.

Type

Examples

Content

Breadcrumbs, FAQ, Events, Videos (see video-optimization), Job postings, Review snippets, Q&A, Discussion forums

Shopping

Product snippets, Merchant listings

Other

Recipes, Datasets, Hotels, Vacation rentals, Profile pages, Practice problems, Math solvers, Image metadata

Note: Reports show sample items, not full list. Use URL Inspection for unlisted URLs.

8. AI Overviews (GSC Limitation)

• GSC: AI Overviews clicks/impressions are not separated from organic in Performance report.

• Workaround: Filter queries that tend to trigger AI Overviews to estimate AI-driven visibility:

(?i)^(who|what|where|when|why|how|which|is|are|can|does|should)|\b(vs|versus|compare|difference|pros and cons|guide|tutorial|best|top|list)\b

For GA4 AI traffic tracking, see ai-traffic-tracking.

9. Links & Disavow

Location: Links (inbound links), Security & Manual Actions

• Links report: View links to site and pages; anchor text distribution.

• Disavow file: Submit via GSC when necessary (manual penalty, toxic links). Use sparingly; over-disavowing can harm. See backlink-analysis for when to disavow.

Search Console API

Method: searchanalytics.query() --exposes all Performance report data.

Metrics

Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position.

Dimensions

date, query, page, country, device. Search appearance (AMP, blue link, rich results). Filter by search type: web, image, video, news.

Limits

Limit

Value

Rows per day per search type per property

50,000

Rows per response

25,000 (use pagination: startRow, rowLimit)

Data availability

2-3 days after

Tip: Run daily queries for one day of data to avoid quota. Verify data presence first (dimensions: date only, no filters).

Optimization: Gzip compression; fields parameter for partial responses; pagination for large datasets.

References: Search Console API, searchanalytics.query

Monthly Audit Checklist

• Performance: Clicks, impressions, CTR, position trends

• Insights: Top/trending content and queries (if available)

• Page indexing: Indexed vs not indexed (isolated views)

• Why not indexed: Trend lines for key reasons

• Sitemaps: All "Success"; indexed URL counts stable

• Core Web Vitals: Mobile good/needs improvement/poor

• Enhancements: No new invalid items (critical issues)

• Links: No manual actions; disavow only if needed (see backlink-analysis)

• Data exported to spreadsheet (month-end snapshot)

• Charts screenshotted for history

• Release notes reviewed for correlation

Output Format

• Summary: Key findings, trends, anomalies

• Metrics: Specific numbers and date ranges

• CTR analysis: Actual vs expected by position; low-CTR high-impression pages

• Title/meta opportunities: Pages with CTR gap; specific optimization suggestions

• Action items: Prioritized fixes (indexing, CWV, sitemaps, enhancements, title/meta)

• Correlation: Suspected causes (releases, config changes)

• Next steps: Monitoring plan, dev handoff

Related Skills

• title-tag, meta-description, page-metadata: Title and meta optimization for low-CTR pages; hreflang

• xml-sitemap: Fix sitemap errors

• indexing: Resolve indexing issues

• core-web-vitals: CWV optimization; fix LCP, INP, CLS

• mobile-friendly: Mobile Usability report; mobile-first indexing

• schema-markup: Fix structured data / rich results

• backlink-analysis: When to disavow; backlink audit

• seo-monitoring: Full SEO data analysis, benchmark