Setting Up Google Search Console and the First Reports to Check

Google Search Console is a free tool that shows you how Google sees your site. It tells you which searches you appear in, how many people click, which pages aren't indexed and why. When a new site goes live, one of the first things to do is open this account in the business owner's name, because most questions after launch are answered there.

Setup takes half an hour. After that, ten minutes a month is enough.

What does Search Console do?

Google Analytics tells you what visitors do on your site. Search Console covers what happens before they arrive: which words you were searched for, where you ranked, how many people saw you without clicking. One doesn't replace the other. We covered Analytics setup in a separate article.

Search Console also sends warnings. If your site is flagged for malware, important pages drop out of the index, or a serious issue is detected, it emails you. That alone is reason enough to set it up.

Domain property vs URL prefix

When adding a site, you will see two options.

A domain property groups every version of your domain: http and https, with and without www, and subdomains like blog.yoursite.com. It is verified through DNS.

A URL prefix property covers only the exact address you enter. If you add https://www.yoursite.com, data for https://yoursite.com won't appear in it. It offers more verification options: uploading an HTML file, adding a meta tag, or verifying via Google Analytics or Tag Manager.

We recommend a domain property if you have DNS access. You see all data in one place, and the property stays valid even if you later change your www preference. Without DNS access, or if you need it done quickly, a URL prefix works too; you can add a domain property later.

Verification and submitting the sitemap

Steps for a domain property:

• Sign in to Search Console with your Google account and choose Add property.
• Under Domain, type just yoursite.com, without https or www.
• Google gives you a TXT record starting with google-site-verification. Copy it.
• Open your domain's DNS management panel (your registrar or a service like Cloudflare), add a new TXT record and paste the value. The name field is usually @.
• Go back to Search Console and click Verify.

DNS changes sometimes spread in minutes, sometimes in a few hours. If it doesn't verify on the first try, wait and try again. If you are wondering what a TXT record is or how to reach the DNS panel, our DNS settings article covers it.

Once verified, submit your sitemap. Open Sitemaps in the left menu, enter your sitemap address (usually yoursite.com/sitemap.xml) and click Submit. Within a few days the status should show Success. If you get an error, check that the address opens in a browser.

One tip: if an agency or freelancer is opening the account, ask for your own Google account to be added as an owner. It is done under Settings, Users and permissions. That way you keep access to the data if you part ways.

Reading the Performance report

This is where you will spend the most time. It shows four metrics:

• Total clicks: visits from search results to your site.
• Total impressions: how many times your site appeared in search results.
• Average CTR: clicks divided by impressions.
• Average position: your average ranking in the results.

The default view shows the last 3 months; the date filter goes back up to 16 months. If your business is seasonal, comparing with the same period last year means more than comparing with last month.

The Queries tab below the chart is the real treasure. It shows the actual search phrases people used to find you. Say you run a car repair shop in Izmir. If your queries include bornova car service, brake pad replacement and car service open on sunday, check whether your site has a separate, substantial page for each. If car service open on sunday gets impressions but no clicks, maybe your site never lists opening hours.

Switch to the Pages tab and look the same way. Pages with high impressions but low CTR need their title and description reworked. Our article on titles and meta descriptions explains how, with examples.

Don't fixate on average position. Being an average across hundreds of queries, it can mislead on its own. Filtering for a specific query and tracking your position there means more.

The page indexing report

It appears as Pages in the left menu. It shows how many of the addresses Google knows are indexed, how many aren't, and why.

Not every non-indexed page is a problem. Redirected pages, pages you deliberately set to noindex, and duplicate addresses where Google chose another version normally sit in this list.

What to watch for: an important service or product page showing under a reason like Crawled, currently not indexed or Excluded by noindex tag. The second is usually an accident; a noindex added during development wasn't removed at launch. If you are investigating why your site doesn't show on Google, this report is the first stop, and we listed the possible causes in a separate article.

To check a single page, paste its address into the search bar at the top. The URL Inspection tool tells you whether it is indexed and lets you request indexing if needed.

A 10-minute monthly routine

As a business owner you don't need to browse Search Console daily. On the first working day of each month, follow this order:

• Performance: Compare the last 28 days with the previous 28. Any clear drop in clicks?
• Pages: Did the number of indexed pages fall suddenly? Did an important page leave the list?
• Sitemaps: Is the status still Success?
• Core Web Vitals: Is any group of URLs marked Poor on mobile?

Also glance at Security and Manual Actions for warnings; normally it should be empty.

If something looks off, take a screenshot and send it to whoever looks after your site. Problems caught early can often be fixed quickly; caught three months later, regaining the lost traffic can take weeks.