How to Read Google Search Console: The Reports That Matter
- Difficulty
- Beginner
- You need
- A Google account and access to your site
- Cost
- Free
On this page
To read Google Search Console, start with the Performance report, which shows the searches your site appears for, how often people click, and which pages they land on. Then check the Page indexing report to see which pages Google has and hasn't indexed, and the Sitemaps and Links reports for discovery. Read trends over weeks, not single days, and compare like with like. This guide is part of our technical SEO guide.
You'll need a Google account and a way to verify that you own the site, usually access to your domain's DNS settings. If someone already manages the property, ask an owner to grant you access instead.
What Search Console is, and isn't
Search Console is Google's free tool for monitoring how your site appears in Google Search. It shows which searches bring up your pages, whether Google can find and index them, and alerts you when it finds problems. You don't need it to appear in Google, but without it you're guessing about how Google sees your site.
It only covers Google Search. It doesn't show what visitors do after they arrive, such as enquiries or sales; that comes from your analytics tool. And it reports Google's view of your site at the time of its last crawl, so recent changes can take a while to show.
The four Performance metrics
The Performance report is built on four numbers. Each one answers a different question, and none of them makes sense on its own.
| Metric | What it counts | Read it as |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks | Clicks from Google results to your site | Visits that search actually delivered |
| Impressions | Times your site appeared in results | How often you were seen |
| CTR | Clicks divided by impressions | How well your result earned the click |
| Average position | Average rank of your topmost result | A rough guide, not an exact rank |
Clicks and impressions move together when demand changes. If impressions rise but CTR falls, you may be showing for broader searches where you're less relevant. Average position is an average across many searches, places and devices, so a small change rarely means much on its own.
Steps
- Add and verify your site.
In Search Console, add a property. A Domain property covers every subdomain and both HTTP and HTTPS, and is verified with a DNS record. A URL-prefix property covers one exact address prefix and offers other ways to verify. Choose Domain if you can edit DNS. Adding a property doesn't change anything on your site or in search.
- Set a date range and compare periods.
The Performance report shows the last three months by default. Use the date filter to compare two periods of the same length, such as this month against the same month last year, so seasonal swings don't mislead you. Switch on all four metrics so you see clicks, impressions, CTR and position together.
- Read the Queries tab.
This lists the searches your site appeared for. Sort by impressions to see what Google associates with your site, and by clicks to see what actually sends visitors. Look for queries that match your services but get few impressions: these are gaps that new or improved pages could fill.
- Read the Pages tab.
Switch the table to Pages to see which URLs earn clicks and impressions. Click a page, then go back to Queries to see the searches that bring up that one page. If a page appears for searches it wasn't written for, its content or title may be sending mixed signals.
- Find pages with impressions but few clicks.
Sort the Pages tab by impressions and look for pages with a much lower CTR than similar pages on your site. They are being seen but not chosen. Check how their title and snippet read for the main query. Our guide to title tags and meta descriptions covers how to rewrite them.
- Check the Page indexing report.
Under Indexing, open Pages and read the "Why pages aren't indexed" table. Not every URL should be indexed, so focus on reasons that affect pages you care about. Use URL Inspection to check a single page. Our guide to fixing indexing issues explains each status.
- Check Sitemaps and Links.
In the Sitemaps report, confirm each sitemap shows Success, as covered in our robots.txt and sitemap guide. In the Links report, read Top linked pages for internal and external links. Google says this report is a sample, not every link, but it shows which pages your site and others link to most.
- Make it a monthly routine.
Our own practice is a short monthly review: compare clicks and impressions with the previous period and the same month last year, scan new indexing issues, and note pages that rose or fell. Write down what changed on the site that month, so you can match changes in the data to their likely cause.
Structured data errors appear in the enhancement reports; our schema markup guide covers the types that fit a service business.
If you'd rather have Search Console read and acted on for you, our in-house SEO team handles the research, the technical fixes and the content.
Common ways to misread the data
Treating average position as a fixed rank. It is the average position of your topmost result across every search that showed it. A page can rank first for a small query and twentieth for a big one, and average out in between.
Reading the newest days as final. The latest data can be preliminary and may change; the chart marks it with a dotted line.
Comparing the chart with the table. The chart counts by property, while the Pages table counts by page, so totals can differ. Neither is wrong.
Ignoring links. A page that earns impressions but has few internal links may be undervalued by your own site. Our internal linking strategy shows how to fix that.
Troubleshooting
Clicks dropped suddenly
Cause: something changed on your site, in Google's results or in demand. Common site-side causes are pages accidentally noindexed or blocked, redirects broken during a redesign, or a key page removed. Demand can also fall with the season, and results pages change over time.
Fix: compare the drop period with the previous period and the same period last year, to rule out seasonality. Switch to the Pages tab to find which pages lost the most clicks, then check those pages in URL Inspection for indexing problems. Look at the Page indexing report for new issues around the same date. If the pages are indexed and impressions fell across many queries, review what now ranks for those searches and how your pages compare.
A query is listed, but you can't find your site for it
Cause: search results are specific to the time, place, device and recent history of the person searching. Your site may have appeared for some people, on some devices, in some locations, or only on a deeper page of results. One impression is enough to put a query in the list.
Fix: check the query's impressions and average position before worrying. A query with few impressions and a low average position is a weak match, not a ranking you've lost. To see results closer to a neutral view, search in a private window, signed out, and try a phone as well as a desktop. Use the Countries and Devices tabs to see where and how the impressions happened.
The chart, the table and the export don't match
Cause: the report aggregates data in different ways. The chart counts by property, so two results from your site for one search count as one impression. The table counts by page when you group by Pages or Search appearance. Values shown as ~ or - in the report become zeros in a download.
Fix: compare like with like. When you need a total, use the chart figure for the property, and use the Pages table only to compare pages with each other. Note which view a number came from when you report it. If an export looks short, check whether the dimension you chose hides rows. When totals must match a past report, use the same filters, date range and search type as last time.
Common questions
Is Google Search Console free?
Yes. Google describes Search Console as a free service for monitoring, maintaining and troubleshooting your site's presence in Google Search. You need a Google account and a way to prove you own the site. You don't have to use it to be included in Google Search, but without it you can't see which searches show your pages or why some aren't indexed.
What is the difference between a Domain and a URL-prefix property?
A Domain property covers every subdomain and protocol of your domain, such as www and non-www, HTTP and HTTPS, in one view. It can only be verified with a DNS record. A URL-prefix property covers only addresses that start with the exact prefix you enter, and offers more ways to verify. Most sites are best served by a Domain property.
Does the Links report show every link to my site?
No. Google says the Links report shows a sample of internal and external links, not a complete list. It can include links Google found in the past that have since been removed, and it doesn't say which links are marked nofollow. Use it to see which pages are linked most and which sites link to you, not as an exact link count.