How do you set up Google Search Console (GSC)?

Google Search Console (GSC) is an essential tool for anyone who runs a website. After a one-time setup, it is available free of charge and supports both beginners and ex­pe­ri­enced web­mas­ters in op­ti­miz­ing their websites ef­fec­tive­ly.

What exactly is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console, often referred to simply as Search Console or GSC, is a free, web-based analytics service provided by Google. Website and app owners can register to access a wide range of practical features and per­for­mance data. Among other things, the tool helps identify issues such as duplicate content, Googlebot crawling errors, and weak­ness­es in mobile usability. In addition, Google Search Console supports sitemap val­i­da­tion, checks for struc­tured data, and offers detailed insights into the per­for­mance of your most important keywords.

How to set up Google Search Console

To use the Google tool, you need to register your website (or app) with the cor­re­spond­ing URL in the Search Console. The re­quire­ments for use are as follows:

• a valid Google account
• ver­i­fi­ca­tion of the web project by the website owner or an au­tho­rized rep­re­sen­ta­tive

After signing in with your Google account and sub­mit­ting the URL of your website or the desired subdomain, you must verify ownership of the domain. This is done by adding a TXT record to the DNS settings of your domain provider. Google explains the required steps for this process in the following dialog window:

Unlike many other SEO tools, Google Search Console data is not public. Access is limited to verified site owners. Once ownership is confirmed, you’ll see a success message. Click “Go to property” to open the Search Console dashboard. At first, however, you won’t see any data because Google needs time to process it. Depending on how complex and extensive the web property is, this process can take several days.

The most important features of Google Search Console

Google Search Console offers many features for managing and mon­i­tor­ing website metrics and provides valuable guidance for op­ti­miz­ing a site. Web­mas­ters get a summary of the most important insights right in the dashboard (“Overview”), which opens by default when you start GSC and clearly presents the key stats and updates.

The various tools included in GSC can be accessed via the left-hand menu of the web analytics suite. They are grouped into the following cat­e­gories, which are explained in more detail in the sections below:

• Insights
• Per­for­mance
• URL In­spec­tion
• Indexing
• User Ex­pe­ri­ence
• Security & Manual Actions
• Links
• Achieve­ments
• Settings

Insights

Under the “Insights” category, Google Search Console provides various clear, visual stats on the per­for­mance of the reg­is­tered web project. The reporting period can be set to different time intervals.

Per­for­mance

In the “Per­for­mance” section, Google Search Console lists the key per­for­mance metrics and user signals for the analyzed domain:

• the total number of im­pres­sions
• the total number of clicks
• the click-through rate
• the average position of pages in Google rankings

The four di­men­sions can be selected with a check mark and displayed visually in a chart. You can also right-click to add custom an­no­ta­tions to the chart. Using the menu at the top of the page, you can adjust and compare the time range, search type (Web, Image, Video, News), and other filters (query, page, country, device) for the key per­for­mance data. With the “Export” command in the upper-right corner of the page, you can export the displayed data to Google Sheets or download it as an Excel or CSV file.

In addition, this section provides detailed in­for­ma­tion on the context behind page views and im­pres­sions: you can see which search queries were used, which URLs account for the largest share of traffic, which countries visitors come from, which devices (desktop, mobile) they use to access the site, and what the ap­pear­ance in search results looked like.

URL In­spec­tion

URL In­spec­tion is a small but powerful tool that you can access from the left-side menu or directly via the search field in the top menu bar of Google Search Console. This lets you check the indexing status of any URL that belongs to the verified domain. If a page is not yet in the Google index, you can request indexing from the same place. This feature also provides tips for improving the page, for example in terms of user ex­pe­ri­ence.

Indexing

The GSC category “Indexing” consists of three sub-items: “Pages,” “Sitemaps,” and “Removals.”

Under “Pages,” you’ll find all in­for­ma­tion about page indexing for the entire web project. Search Console lists all pages that are indexed as well as all pages that are excluded from indexing. For the latter, the tool also provides numbers on the reasons they weren’t included. You can review the specific reasons in the table below and filter them by various factors. Reasons for non-indexed pages include, among others, the following:

• excluded by noindex tag
• alternate page with the correct canonical tag
• page with a redirect
• crawled, but currently not indexed
• found, but currently not indexed
• blocked by robots.txt file
• crawling anomaly
• 404 error
• duplicate

For web projects with shopping and product data, this section is es­pe­cial­ly important, since product detail pages and category pages are also included. With this feature in Google Search Console, you can see whether product-related pages are being indexed correctly by Google, whether struc­tured product data can be crawled, and whether certain shopping URLs are excluded due to technical issues.

The second sub­cat­e­go­ry “Sitemaps” lets you submit your web project’s sitemaps and view sitemaps that have been submitted and recorded by Google. Here, you get an overview of your sub­mis­sion history and receive related error messages from Google.

In the third sub­cat­e­go­ry “Removals” in the Google Search Console, you can submit your own removal requests and get an overview of all submitted removal requests. Using the “New request” field opens a menu where you can tem­porar­i­ly remove URLs or clear snippets. You can also view requests related to your web project that were submitted due to outdated or explicit content.

If you have placed videos on your website and Google detects them, another subitem appears under the “Indexing” menu, which is “Video indexing.” This lists all videos that have been indexed by Google as well as those that have had indexing issues. The issues that occur are compiled in a table.

User-friend­li­ness

In the “User-friend­li­ness” menu item, web­mas­ters will find two sub­cat­e­gories. In the Core Web Vitals section, you’ll find reports on website per­for­mance based on real usage data. The “Page Ex­pe­ri­ence” reports in­cor­po­rate factors such as Largest Con­tent­ful Paint (LCP), visual stability (CLS), and your website’s re­spon­sive­ness (INP). Under the “HTTPS” menu item, it lists which URLs on your website use the secure, encrypted transport protocol Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) and which do not.

Both the HTTPS report and the Core Web Vitals help improve the security and user ex­pe­ri­ence of your site.

Security and manual actions

Google defines clear guide­lines known as Google Search Es­sen­tials that outline what’s required for fair and compliant vis­i­bil­i­ty in search results. Attempts to ma­nip­u­late the search index can lead to penalties, ranging from ranking drops to complete removal from Google’s search results.

The “Security & Manual Actions” menu item is divided into two sub­cat­e­gories. Under “Manual Actions,” you can see whether your project is affected by a penalty. The “Security issues” subitem also provides in­for­ma­tion about how secure the web ap­pli­ca­tion is. If Google iden­ti­fies security vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, they are shown here—whether it’s spam, malware, or unusual downloads.

Links

Internal and external links are among the most important building blocks of a suc­cess­ful web presence. Well-placed links provide value to visitors and also have a positive impact on how Google evaluates a website. That’s why the “Links” category in Google Search Console is es­pe­cial­ly important. Here, you get detailed data on all existing inbound and outbound links. You can also download this in­for­ma­tion using the “Export” command at the top right of the page.

Successes

This feature in Google Search Console tracks your website’s growth and in­di­vid­ual achieve­ments. Achieve­ments are measured by the number of clicks reached and are presented in two sections, which are “In progress” and “Achieved.” When an “In progress” achieve­ment is completed, Google sends you a con­grat­u­la­tions email and moves the milestone to the “Achieved” section.

Settings

In the “Settings” menu item, you can, among other things, add ad­di­tion­al site owners, enter address changes, and access crawling sta­tis­tics.

What are the SEO benefits of GSC?

With Google Search Console, you get a com­pre­hen­sive overview of a website’s technical health. Whether it’s the number of clicks and im­pres­sions, indexing status, or link profile, Google provides valuable insights that you’d otherwise often have to get from paid third-party tools—and it’s com­plete­ly free. Search Console is therefore one of the standard tools for search engine op­ti­miza­tion and provides valuable in­for­ma­tion for both beginners and pros.

What’s the dif­fer­ence between GSC and Google Analytics?

While Google Analytics shows how users behave on a website—what they click and how long they stay on different pages—Google Search Console shows how the search engine evaluates the website from a technical per­spec­tive. Google Search Console therefore helps you better un­der­stand how the Google crawler indexes a page and how its position in the search results is de­ter­mined.

How can you connect Google Search Console with Google Analytics?

Linking Google Analytics and Google Search Console has the advantage of letting you view technical per­for­mance data directly in context with user behavior on your website. This way, you can see not only which search queries bring visitors to your site, but also how they behave once they arrive. When you review technical data together with usage behavior, op­ti­miza­tion op­por­tu­ni­ties become apparent faster, and you gain a clearer un­der­stand­ing of how your content performs in Google Search.

To link both services, proceed as follows:

1. Make sure you’re listed in GSC as a verified owner and have at least Edit per­mis­sions in Google Analytics.
2. Then, in Google Analytics (GA4), open the “Admin” section.
3. Select “Product Links” and then “Search Console Links”.
4. Select the desired property, link the ap­pro­pri­ate web data stream, and complete the con­nec­tion.