Analytics
Google Search Console: complete guide 2026
Google Search Console is Google's free tool for monitoring a site's organic presence. It shows real data on clicks, positions, indexing, and errors. We cover all key sections and practical applications.
Google Search Console (GSC) is Google's free tool that shows how the search engine sees your site. Unlike Google Analytics, GSC focuses not on user behaviour after a click, but on what happens before it: how Google crawls, indexes, and ranks your pages.
GSC is the only source of accurate Google data about your site. Third-party tools (Ahrefs, Semrush) build estimates from samples. GSC shows real clicks, real positions, and real crawler errors.
What is GSC
Data history
Maximum period for analysis in the standard GSC interface
Rows per export
UI limit — via the API you can retrieve all data without restrictions
Data delay
GSC updates data with a 2–4 day lag from the actual event
Properties
Unlimited sites can be added to a single account
Setup and verification
To add a site to GSC you need to verify ownership. Google offers two property types: 'Domain' (covers all versions: www, non-www, http, https) and 'URL prefix' (only the specified URL variant).
| Verification method | How to implement | Recommended |
|---|---|---|
| DNS record (Domain type) | Add TXT record in your hosting control panel | Yes — covers all domain versions |
| HTML file | Upload verification file to the site root | Yes — reliable |
| HTML meta tag | Add tag to <head> of the homepage | Yes — simple for CMS |
| Google Analytics | If using the same Google account | Yes — automatic |
| Google Tag Manager | If GTM is already installed | Yes — no code access needed |
Performance report
The main GSC report. Shows four metrics: Clicks (how many times users clicked through to the site from Google), Impressions (how many times pages appeared in results), CTR (clicks-to-impressions ratio), and Position (average position in results).
| Metric | What it shows | How to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks | Real organic traffic from Google | Primary KPI for organic SEO |
| Impressions | Search visibility — how many times pages appeared | Rising impressions with flat clicks = falling CTR |
| CTR | Percentage of clicks per impression | Low CTR at good position = title/description problem |
| Position | Average position of a page for a query | Position 4–10 with high impressions = growth opportunity |
Key filters and dimensions
Performance data can be broken down across four dimensions: Queries (what users search), Pages (which pages get clicks), Countries (traffic geography), Devices (desktop, mobile, tablet). Combine filters for precise analysis.
Indexing report
The 'Page indexing' section shows which pages Google has indexed and which it hasn't — and why. This is critical information for diagnosing visibility problems.
| Status | Meaning | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Indexed | Google has included the page in the index | Normal — monitor the count |
| Excluded by canonical | Page duplicates another; Google chose the canonical version | Verify canonical is correct |
| Excluded by noindex | The page has a noindex directive | Intentional or a mistake? |
| Discovered — not crawled | Google knows about the page but hasn't visited it | Crawl budget issue |
| Crawled — not indexed | Google visited but didn't add to the index | Low-quality content or duplicate |
| 404 error | Page not found | Set up a 301 redirect or remove from sitemap |
URL Inspection tool
The URL Inspection tool is a powerful diagnostic tool for a specific page. It shows how Google sees the page: whether it's indexed, when it was last crawled, which canonical is detected, and whether there are any issues.
Key features: 'Request indexing' — send the page for re-crawl (use after updating important content); 'Test live URL' — see the rendered page through Googlebot's eyes and check resource loading.
Sitemaps
The 'Sitemaps' section lets you submit your sitemap.xml URL and monitor its status. GSC shows how many URLs were discovered in the sitemap and how many were actually indexed — a discrepancy can indicate problems.
# Add sitemap in GSC
# GSC → Sitemaps → Add a new sitemap
https://example.com/sitemap.xml
https://example.com/sitemap-blog.xml
https://example.com/sitemap-index.xml
# Check sitemap status via API
curl "https://www.googleapis.com/webmasters/v3/sites/\
https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com/sitemaps?key=YOUR_API_KEY"Core Web Vitals in GSC
GSC shows Core Web Vitals data based on real users (Chrome User Experience Report). Pages are split into three groups: 'Good', 'Needs improvement', 'Poor' — separately for mobile and desktop.
| CWV metric | Good | Needs improvement | Poor |
|---|---|---|---|
| LCP (loading) | < 2.5 s | 2.5–4.0 s | > 4.0 s |
| INP (interactivity) | < 200 ms | 200–500 ms | > 500 ms |
| CLS (stability) | < 0.1 | 0.1–0.25 | > 0.25 |
Links
The 'Links' section contains two blocks: external links (inbound from other sites) and internal links. External links in GSC reflect what Google actually sees, unlike tools like Ahrefs which build their own index.
Practical uses: find pages with the most external links (optimisation priority), discover unwanted links for rejection via the Disavow Tool, verify internal link structure.
Practical applications
| Task | Where in GSC | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Find pages with low CTR | Performance → Pages → sort by CTR | Improve title and description |
| Find queries ranking 4–10 | Performance → Queries → filter position 4–10 | Optimise content for those queries |
| Diagnose index drops | Indexing → Pages → 'Excluded' status | Check the reason, fix it |
| Speed up new page indexing | URL Inspection → Request indexing | Request after publishing |
| Check mobile version | Mobile usability → error list | Fix rendering errors |
| Monitor manual penalties | Security & Manual Actions | Fix violations, submit reconsideration |