What is Search Console for?
Google Search Console is a free service from Google for people who run websites. It shows how Google sees your site: which pages are indexed, which are left out and why, which searches your pages appeared for, how often people clicked, and any problems Google found, from broken structured data to security issues. It cannot change your ranking, and Google gives no advantage to sites that use it. What it gives you is evidence, which replaces guessing.
Bing has the same kind of service, Bing Webmaster Tools, which can import a site you have already verified in Search Console. Most of what follows applies to both, with different names for some reports.
This lesson describes the screens and clicks without running them. Setting up Search Console means signing in with your own Google account and proving you own the site, which you do yourself, on a real site. The lab shows the same ideas on your pretend profile site, and the Inspect button in the Crawler view is a small model of the URL Inspection tool.
How do you add a site?
Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in. Choose Add property, and pick one of two types. A Domain property covers every address under a domain: https and http, with and without www, and any subdomains. A URL prefix property covers only addresses that start with exactly what you type, such as https://you.example/.
A Domain property is the better choice when you can use it, because nothing slips through. It needs verification through DNS: Search Console gives you a TXT record, a line of text you add in your domain or hosting control panel, such as the Zone Editor in cPanel. DNS changes can take a while to spread, so if verification fails at first, wait and press Verify again.
A URL prefix property offers more ways to verify: uploading a small HTML file Google gives you to the site's root, adding a <meta name="google-site-verification"> tag to the home page's head, or using an existing Google Analytics or Tag Manager setup. Leave the file or tag in place afterwards. If it is removed, Search Console eventually notices and you lose access until you verify again.
What does the Pages report show?
In the menu on the left, under Indexing, the Pages report splits every address Google knows about into Indexed and Not indexed, with a chart over time. Below the chart, a table lists the reasons pages are not indexed, each with a count. Click a reason to see example addresses.
Some reasons mean you asked for it, such as Excluded by 'noindex' tag, Page with redirect, or Alternate page with proper canonical tag. Those are normal on a healthy site. Others deserve a look: Not found (404) for a page you meant to keep, Blocked by robots.txt for a page you want in search, or Duplicate without user-selected canonical when two addresses show the same thing. Crawled, currently not indexed and Discovered, currently not indexed mean Google knows the page and has not added it yet; for a new site this often clears up with time and better internal links.
When you fix a reason, open it and press Validate fix. Google then rechecks the listed addresses over the following days and reports whether the fix held. The lab's Index view uses its own plain words for the same idea, and its list of reasons is shorter.
How does URL Inspection work?
Paste any address from your property into the search bar at the top of Search Console and press Enter. URL Inspection reports what Google has stored for that address: whether it is on Google, how it was discovered, when it was last crawled, whether crawling and indexing were allowed, which canonical Google chose and which you declared, and any structured data or other enhancements it found.
That report describes Google's indexed copy, which may be days or weeks old. Test live URL fetches the page as it is now and shows whether it could be indexed, which is how you confirm a fix before Google recrawls. View crawled page shows the HTML Google received and a screenshot of the rendered page.
Request indexing asks Google to crawl the address soon. It is useful after you publish an important new page or fix a serious error. It does not guarantee indexing, there is a daily limit, and requesting the same page repeatedly does not speed anything up.
How do you submit a sitemap?
Under Indexing, open Sitemaps. Type the sitemap's address after the domain shown, such as sitemap.xml, and press Submit. The table below then lists the sitemap with a status: Success when Google could read it, Has errors when some entries are wrong, or Couldn't fetch when the address does not work. Click a row to see how many pages were discovered from it.
You submit a sitemap once. Google rereads it on its own schedule, so there is no need to submit again after each change, and no need to submit your site to search engines every week, whatever an AI tool suggests. Listing the sitemap in robots.txt with a Sitemap: line lets other search engines find it too.
The lab treats /sitemap.xml as already submitted and always reads it. On a real site, a sitemap that is neither submitted nor named in robots.txt may never be read.
User-agent: *
Disallow:
Sitemap: https://you.example/sitemap.xmlWhat does the Performance report tell you?
Under Performance, Search results shows four totals for the dates you pick: clicks, impressions, average click-through rate and average position. An impression counts each time a link to your site appeared in results someone loaded, whether or not they scrolled to it. Click-through rate is clicks divided by impressions. Average position is the average of your site's topmost position in each search where it appeared, so a single figure can hide large differences between searches.
Below the chart, tabs break the totals down by Queries, Pages, Countries, Devices, Search appearance and Dates. The Queries tab is where you learn what people really typed, which is often different from the words you would have guessed. Google hides some rare queries to protect searchers' privacy, so the query rows do not add up to the total.
The data covers up to 16 months and usually runs a couple of days behind. Compare periods with the Date filter's Compare option, and compare like with like: a bakery's December will always look different from its February. Small sites have small numbers, and a change from three clicks to six is noise more often than progress.
What else is in the menu?
Experience holds Core Web Vitals, which reports speed and stability measured in real visitors' browsers, and HTTPS, which lists pages that are not served securely. Enhancements, when present, list structured data types Google found, such as Events, Breadcrumbs or Products, with valid items and errors. Security and Manual actions tells you if Google found hacked content or took action against the site for breaking its spam policies; for most sites both say no issues detected.
Removals lets you hide an address from Google results quickly for about six months, while you remove or noindex it properly. It is a temporary block, and the page comes back if nothing else changes. Settings, at the bottom, holds Users and permissions, where you can give a colleague or a developer access without sharing your Google password.
What does the lab leave out?
The lab has no accounts, no history and no searchers. It cannot show impressions or clicks, because it never ranks anything, and it shows the result of one crawl at once. Real Search Console data arrives slowly: a new site may show nothing for a week or two, and a fix often takes days to appear in the Pages report.
The lab's Inspect button and Index view are models of URL Inspection and the Pages report, with simpler rules and its own wording. Use them to understand the reasons, then trust Search Console for what Google really did.
What do AI tools get wrong about Search Console?
AI tools often describe reports that have been renamed or retired, such as the old Coverage report, which became the Pages report, or the old Search Console's Fetch as Google, which became URL Inspection. They may tell you to request indexing for every page after every edit, which wastes your daily quota and changes nothing for pages Google already crawls regularly. Some invent features, such as a setting to choose your ranking position or a button to submit keywords.
They also misread the numbers. An average position of 8 does not mean your site sits in eighth place for everything, and a drop in impressions after a holiday is usually down to the calendar. A real penalty shows up in the Manual actions report. When an AI explanation of your Search Console data sounds dramatic, open the report, filter to one query or one page, and look for yourself.
Field notes
- Search Console is Google's free tool for seeing how your site is crawled, indexed and shown in results.
- A Domain property, verified through DNS, covers every address on the domain.
- The Pages report lists indexed and left-out pages, with a reason for each.
- URL Inspection shows one address as Google sees it, and Performance shows queries, clicks and impressions.
Easy to get wrong
Requests have a daily limit and do not guarantee indexing. Google rereads sitemaps and well-linked pages on its own.
Search Console checks verification again from time to time. If the proof disappears, you lose access to the data.
The Sitemap: line in robots.txt needs a full URL. Crawlers do not read it relative to the site, as they do with Disallow paths.
Questions people ask
Does using Search Console improve my rankings?
No. It reports what Google sees and lets you fix problems faster. Sites that never open it are treated the same way by search.
Why does a new property show no data?
If Google already showed the site in results, Performance often shows past data straight away, because Google collects it whether or not anyone has verified. A brand new site has nothing until it starts appearing, the data runs a couple of days behind, and the Pages report fills in as Google crawls.
Should I choose a Domain or a URL prefix property?
A Domain property if you can add a DNS record, because it covers every version of the address. A URL prefix property is fine when you cannot change DNS, or when you only want to watch one section.
Can someone else set it up for me?
Yes. Verify the property under your own Google account first, then add them under Settings, Users and permissions. That way you keep ownership if they move on.
Do I need Bing Webmaster Tools as well?
It is optional and free. It covers Bing and services that use Bing's index, and it can import your verified sites from Search Console in a few clicks.