Google Search Console
Google Search Console is a collection of tools and resources to help website owners, webmasters, marketers, and SEO professionals improve their websites. This powerful platform allows users to monitor website performance in the Google search index, providing invaluable insights and actionable data.
An essential tool for anyone serious about improving search performance and visibility, Google Search Console offers a unique window into how Google perceives and interacts with your site, providing data that can’t be found anywhere else. That’s why we’re committed to keeping you informed fast about Google Search Console news.
Key features
Google Search Console offers a huge variety of features that include:
- Search Appearance Information: Gain insights into how your site appears in search results.
- Search Traffic Analysis: Understand your audience better by analyzing your overall search performance.
- Technical Status Updates: Receive notifications about critical issues affecting your site’s performance in search results.
- Crawl Data and Indexing Insights: Monitor how Google crawls and indexes your site.
- Performance Reports: Access detailed data on your site’s search performance. Core Web Vitals reports provide crucial information about your site’s user experience.
- URL Inspection Tool: Examine specific URLs to understand how Google views and indexes them and troubleshoot any issues.
- Links Analysis: Explore internal and external links to your site.
Leveraging Google Search Console effectively can lead to significant improvements in your site’s search performance. For example:
- The Performance Report can help identify underperforming pages that might benefit from content optimization.
- The Mobile Usability Report can guide improvements in your site’s mobile experience, which is crucial in today’s mobile-first indexing environment.
- The Links Report can inform your link-building strategy by revealing the most linked content and the top linking sites.
The evolution
Originally launched as Google Webmaster Tools, the platform was significantly rebranded in 2015 to become Google Search Console. This change reflected its broader utility for various marketing professionals beyond webmasters.
The evolution of Google Search Console mirrors the changing landscape of SEO and digital marketing in general. As search algorithms become more sophisticated and UX takes center stage, the platform has adapted to provide more insights and actionable data.
Maximizing your Google Search Console experience
We invite you to read our guides and tips for using Google Search Console, along with the latest news and feature updates. The goal of our content is to help you make the most of Google Search Console.
For example, you can learn how to use Google Search Console to get easy SEO wins. You can also explore our comprehensive SEO’s guide on the platform, as it offers an in-depth look at techniques and best practices for seasoned professionals.
Stay tuned to Search Engine Land to ensure you’re always up-to-date with the latest features and best practices of Google Search Console, helping you maintain a competitive edge in the ever-evolving world of SEO.
Is Google moving toward being search marketing’s point of singularity: Thursday’s daily brief
Plus, we’re looking for speakers for SMX Create
Quest for more coverage: Making a case for larger exports from Google Search Console’s Coverage reporting
Google Search Console's Coverage reporting only allows one thousand row exports, which limits the ability to see pattens on larger-scale sites.
Google publishes new manual actions aimed at Google News and Discover penalties
Google has not yet announced the addition of these new manual actions but they are all visible in the help documents.
Google Search Console Discover performance report now includes all data
Also be on the look out for the new origin referrer for Chrome Google Discover traffic.
Why we’re creating a new content experience for SMX
This year we're offering topic-specific events that offer attendees guided learning paths for becoming sharper marketers.
Google News performance report added to Google Search Console
Google Search Console now lets you dive in to how well your news site performs in Google News and the Google News App.
Google updates the Search Console coverage report
The updated report now gives you very specific categories and labels for errors and responses.
Google launches Question Hub for US publishers
After a few years of testing Google Question Hub India, Indonesia and Nigeria - it is now available in the United States.
SEO year in review 2020: COVID forces platforms to adapt their local and e-commerce offerings, and more
Even a pandemic couldn’t slow down developments in the search industry. Here’s our recap of the year’s most important stories and news.
Brand reputation and the impact of Google SERP selections
How Google treats company navigational brand searches and the impact they can have on consumer perceptions.
Google Search Console brings back request indexing tool
After 69 days of it not working, it is now back up and running.
Google temporarily disables issue validation in Search Console
Yet another feature has been disabled in Google Search Console, this comes months after Google disabled the request indexing tool.
Google services were down including Google Ads, Google Analytics, Search Console & more
Much of Google is offline, it is not just you. Google began restoring services at around 7:28am ET.
Google Search Console API gains fresh data & more
Not only can you get fresher data via the API, you can also manage your domain properties and more.
New key insights from Google’s John Mueller at SMX
Topics include the Page Experience Update, FAQ schema, request indexing tool, diversity and much more.
Google launches new crawl stats report in Search Console
Google has revamped the crawl stats report to provide actionable and useful data to your crawling issues.
Google manual actions bug is now resolved
Google's Daniel Waisberg confirmed this bug is resolved and said it only "affected only a tiny number of sites."
Google investigating missing manual actions
Over the past 24-hours or so there have been reports of manual actions disappearing from Google Search Console.
Google migrates the disavow link tool to new Search Console
Google also added the ability to download the file and see new errors related to your file.
Google Page Experience Update to launch May 2021 with new labels in search results
Google will highlight search results that have a great page experience.
What passage indexing and natural language processing mean for the future of SEO
Google’s recent updates provide SEOs with more freedom to focus on users instead of bots.
Proactively building negative keyword lists in Google Ads is now more important than ever
Google appears to be pushing for the premature rollout of automated features to further develop its machine learning (at the expense of the advertiser). Here are some ways to review your accounts to avoid pitfalls.
Google Search Console temporarily drops request indexing feature
This feature should be back in the upcoming weeks while Google makes infrastructure changes.
Google Podcasts Manager shows you search impressions and clicks from Google Search
You can see impressions and clicks for Google Podcasts results that appear in Search, as well as top discovered episodes and search terms that led to your podcast.
‘People Also Ask’ boxes: Tips for ranking, optimizing and tracking
PAA boxes appear in nearly half of all searches. Here’s how they work and how SEOs can use them to their advantage.
Study: Comparing the data from 8 SEO tools
Spoiler: The numbers you'll find don't match up. SEO metric tools are for general trend analysis and competitor benchmarking, not on specific numbers.
How to audit sites inside corporate networks
Turn private (VPN required) URLs into temporary ones that allow for page changes but hide the content to preserve its privacy.
GoogleBot to soon crawl over HTTP/2
While HTTP/2 should result in efficiency improvements, there is no ranking benefit to this chage.
More Google Search bugs: Top stories indexing snag, coverage report delays
Google had yet another indexing issue and the search coverage report in Search Console is very delayed.
How content consolidation can help boost your rankings
Update, remove and/or merge content to avoid split ranking signals and provide users with a better experience.
Google tests reporting security issue false positives in Search Console
This should help sites that were mistakenly removed from Google search rectify the issue sooner.
SEO horror stories: Here’s what not to do
These three real-life case studies are anonymized to share textbook examples of how not to approach search engine optimization.
Google Search Console can now help you fix your AMP Signed Exchange (SXG) problems
The AMP enhancement report and the URL inspection tool can now show you issues with your signed exchanges.
Google Search Console Insights for content creators
Search Console Insights uses both Search Console and Google Analytics data in one view
Google updates Search Console API infrastructure
The API is backward compatible and there are currently no changes in scope or functionality.
How search data can inform larger online business decisions
Decision makers in their respective silos are generally unaware of the value in the data Google shares so it's your job to disperse this knowledge across your organization.
Why SEOs should care about brand
Brand is already affecting the performance we are held accountable for, so we can use the data we have as SEOs to benefit the whole company.
Advanced tactics for SEO title tag optimization
Moz' Cyrus Shepard offers top tips on boosting CTRs and earning more traffic with better title tags.
Feedback optimization: A user-first approach to SEO
Feedback optimization is the process of using readers’ comments to improve your content. See how this strategy can improve SEO performance while creating better search results for your audience.
Google Search Console adds image license structured data support
Now you can debug your image license markup in the Rich Results test tool or in Search Console.