There’s much more to Google Search than you’d expect, meaning lots more opportunity to make Google work harder for you and your business.

Google Search Console (GSC) is one of the most powerful free resources in any marketer’s toolkit, yet remarkably underutilized by many brands. Providing invaluable insights directly from Google’s systems around website visibility and performance within organic search, it essentially allows peeking beneath the algorithmic hood.

Marketers can leverage GSC’s robust analytics capabilities paired with its technical crawling and diagnostics to set reliable SEO growth strategies. Monitoring real searcher behavior and diagnosing issues plaguing pages translates into more clicks, traffic, and revenues unlocked.

This guide will explore everything brands require to transform organic search opportunity into measurable wins leveraging this platform—from diagnosing problems to monitoring competitors to optimizing content. Readers will learn:

  • Capabilities delivering intelligence to fuel organic acquisition
  • Integrations with tools like Google Analytics for further analysis
  • Steps for technically optimizing pages based on crawler findings

Our Quick Read guide explains all…

Google Search

IN A RUSH?! Click for our <90 second snapshot

What is Google Search Console?

The Google Search console lets you find out how whatever you share on the internet is found by those who are looking for it. Search Console provides the data and tools to understand what is bringing people to your page, thus increasing the number of visitors.

Some of the things Google Search console can do for you include:

  • Figure out if people can find your site using Google,
  • Make sure Google can find your page or store,
  • Inform you about any errors,
  • Track which search terms are leading visitors to your pages,
  • Help you determine which pages are your most successful.

The Search Analytics Report

Google Search Analytics lets you see how often your site has appeared in a Google search. Within the report you can break down and filter your appearances by date, device, and search query.

It lets you determine how viewers are seeing your site, e.g. on a mobile device. This report will help you know how people are finding your site. You can use analytics to figure out which of your products or pages is the most successful, and help you determine where to invest your resources.

Reading the Report

When you review your report you first see the default view. It include data from the past four weeks, but you can change the metrics and customize your report.

You can filter and group what you are seeing using a series of dropdown menus. You can even compare different groups to see how you are doing in one category versus another.

Metrics

Reviewing your metrics for your reports helps you to better reach your customers by improving where you appear in searches as well as knowing how often potential customers are clicking through to your site when you do appear.

  • Clicks – If you’d like to know more about clicks that land viewers on your page, you can count clicks.
  • Impressions – Google also offers something called impressions. Impressions let you know how many links to your site appeared in users’ Google searches, even if they did not click on them. The data about impressions only includes a count for links that appeared on pages the user viewed. For example, if your link is on the second page but they never leave the first, it is not counted.
  • CTR – The click-through rate (CTR) lets you know how many times viewers clicked on your link relative to how often you appeared in searches. In other words, it takes the click count and divides it by the impression total.
  • Position – This metric lets you know where in the search your highest click page is in the rankings. If you have several high ranking pages, position will only provide information on the top result.

Alerts

One reason to engage Google Analytics is to make use of their error reporting. If your site is having trouble it’s always better to know where and when so you can fix the issue.

Types

Crawl errors – these errors are what prevent your pages from appearing in a search. Google Analytics provides reports to you on pages (URLs) that it could not crawl or if there was an error code.

  • Site errors – No one wants to have errors, but it’s better to know and be able to fix them than for potential customers or site visitors to find them. If things are in good working order on your site, Google will find no Site errors. A Crawl Error report free of site errors is a good indication that things are in working order.
    • High rates – If the report shows many errors it can mean any number of things, including that external links are no longer working.
    • Low rates – Having site errors can mean that your site is overloaded or even that you need to correct the configuration. This report gives you a heads up and lets you fix it before it causes problems.

Types of site errors include DNS errors, server errors, and robots failure. You can read more about those in the Google documentation.

  • URL errors – include common types, such as the 404 error, and access denied. There can also be mobile/smart phone only URL errors and news only errors. The report will include the top 1,000 URL errors and let you know which are the highest priority.
    • Not found errors (404) – this common error type needs to be addressed for any of your pages that are linked to from elsewhere. These can often be misspelled links, older URLs, or links that no longer exist on your site.
    • Redirects – Keep them “short and sweet”. The Googlebot needs to be able to interpret the hops and get to where you want your viewer to land.
Google search

Safe search is a feature in Google’s search engine that limits, filters, and blocks explicit search results. It isn’t 100% accurate, but functions like a parental control to keep more adult or inappropriate results out of the hands of children.

It can function in mobile, tablet, or computer searches.

How does it Work?

SafeSearch works by blocking content. When it is on the top content is shown but it skips over any explicit images, websites or videos.

Which Platforms?

SafeSearch is available for your computer, and Android or iOS phone or tablet. It can be turned off and on in the Google App, your phone or tablet browser, Android TV, and for the computer in the search settings.

Google Search - what is google index - a girl researching something on google

What is the Most Searched Thing on Google Ever?

What people look for using Google varies by country. Google makes trends available for the UK, Germany, and many more countries. The trend data available includes the most searched questions, such as “What is…?”, political searches by name, questions asked such as “Why is…?” and more.

It’s great to explore the trend data to see how your own site stacks up to what is most searched around the globe. And it can even give you ideas of what to look for in your own searches.

So, what is the most searched thing on Google ever?  – It’s always changing!

Generally the most popular searches are for social media websites, such as YouTube, Facebook and Twitter as well as other search engines.

Comparing key capabilities of Google Search Console versus alternative SEO/analytics tools:

ToolOrganic Keyword/Rank TrackingSite Crawl DiagnosticsGoogle Data IntegrationUsage AnalyticsURL Benchmarking
Google Search Console
Semrush
Ahrefs
Screaming Frog
Google Analytics

Summary Analysis:

  • Google Search Console uniquely combines official Google data with robust technical SEO capabilities like crawling and diagnostics. It can centralize organic intelligence gathering and optimization.
  • Tools like Semrush and Ahrefs offer supplementary rank tracking and competitive analysis best integrated with Search Console data.
  • Analytics tools like Google Analytics then provide the layer of site usage statistics and user behavior analysis.
What Is Google Advanced Image Search? Search for a Specific Image or Photo

What to Search on Google?

Many people already know how to use Google to search for images, videos and locations but there’s so much more to Google.

  • Cached sites – You can search Google’s cache for a site that is down or not currently available. You can view the static snapshot of the page from whenever it was last cached.
  • Sports scores – you can ask Google to let you know which team is winning a current match or game. Just type in the name of your team and the current score will appear in your results.
  • Games – if you haven’t played Google’s games, you’re missing out on a lot of fun. Give Zerg Rush a try, for example.
  • Do conversions – Google can convert temperatures, currency and measurements for you with a simple search.

Key reports and data in Google Search Console:

Index Coverage Report:

  • Essential for checking if Google has crawled, indexed, and serving website pages
  • Diagnose errors like missing title tags, robots.txt issues, canonical problems

Links Report:

  • Provides list of external sites linking back to website with link type classification
  • Helps identify new link building opportunities in similar sites/contexts

Click Search Queries Report:

  • Shows actual search queries that sent clicks to your site from Google organic
  • Analyze details like impressions, click through rates (CTR), average positions
  • Optimize targeting of high potential search terms

Search Appearance:

  • Aggregated view of highest traffic search queries and how site ranks for them
  • Quickly identify higher/lower ranking terms to categorize optimization tiers

The wealth of organic search and site diagnostic data empowers better understanding site health and opportunities.

Capabilities within Google Search Console like the manual crawling tools:

Manual Crawling

  • Tell Googlebot to re-crawl and index specific pages on demand
  • Useful for when new pages published or important content updated
  • Priority crawling prioritizes serving fresh content to searchers

URL Inspection Tool

  • Detailed crawl, index, serving diagnostics on a URL-by-URL basis
  • See specific issues causing problems per page

Enhanced Crawl Stats

  • Granular visibility into how Googlebot crawled site over time
  • Frequency, response codes, crawl budget, issues detected
  • Optimize site architecture for crawl efficiency

Sitemaps Report

  • Provide Google sitemaps to optimize crawl prioritization
  • Review state of submitted sitemaps
  • Diagnose errors like invalid URLs inside sitemaps

Offering both aggregate portfolio-level insights alongside granular inspection and manual assist tools makes Search Console uniquely suited for technical audit and fixes.

The most common use cases and queries people analyze within Google Search Console:

Monitoring Organic Traffic Changes

  • Compare organic traffic graphs week-over-week or year-over-year
  • Identify new pages driving growth or drops

Diagnosing Ranking Declines

  • Review losing rankings reports for priority keywords
  • Check for algorithm updates or site issues

Optimizing Page Speed

  • Analyze page speed metrics and diagnose slow URLs
  • Improve site performance and user experience

Fixing Index Coverage Problems

  • Review indexing report for URLs dropping out
  • Submit new sitemaps, configure crawling prioritization

Analyzing Search Queries

  • Identify high impression search queries with low CTR
  • Tailor pages and content to match user intent better

Comparing Site Performance Over Time

  • Benchmark key metrics like click-through-rate, impressions, position
  • Set goals for organic growth month-over-month

A case study demonstrating how a business leveraged Google Search Console data to diagnose and fix issues improving organic growth:

Case Study: Ecommerce Company Recovers Traffic with GSC Insights

The Challenge:
Leading fashion ecommerce site StyleShop noticed organic site traffic declining steadily over a 2 month period, but lacked visibility into the root cause. This resulted in loss of 22% of search-driven revenues vital to their business.

Analytic Approach: By connecting Google Search Console to analyze Zeitgeist’s site performance, the SEO team quickly identified that a recent website redesign had caused critical category and product pages to drop out of the index due to crawler access issues.

By diving into detailed reports on indexing errors and invalid URLs within sitemaps, StyleShop targeted the highest priority pages and submitted them for re-crawling using Search Console tools.

The Outcome: Within 6 weeks, StyleShop rebounded to achieve even higher organic traffic levels than pre-redesign. The year-over-year growth increased conversion lift by 30%. Leveraging Search Console data prevented lasting damage and unlocked greater sustainable visibility through SEO optimizations.

FAQ

Q: Is Search Console only for technical SEOs?

A: While its crawl data aids troubleshooting, all marketers can leverage reporting on queries, clicks, competitors.

Q: How often should I check Search Console?

A: Weekly checks on core reports is recommended, with daily checks to stay updated on new messages from Google.

Q: Will Search Console show ranking changes in real-time?

A: Near real-time, but ranking shifts verify after 72 hours. Use other tools to supplement for immediate monitoring.

Q: Can I integrate Search Console with Google Analytics?

A: Yes, connect them via the integrations panel to combine analytics site usage data with search visibility.

Conclusion

As the gateway direct from source at Google, Search Console provides unprecedented capability for brands to diagnose opportunities and apply fixes translating into organic growth and revenues. By combining macro-level analytics with micro-level technical crawling insights, marketers can craft data-backed strategies tailored to the exact phrases driving conversions.

From rank tracking software to technical SEO crawlers, robust tech stacks integrate Search Console rather than replace it. The reliable accuracy of Google’s internal performance data will continue making it an indispensable resource among all digital marketing toolsets for years to come.

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