What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that shows you how your website performs in Google search results. It tells you which searches bring people to your site, how often your pages appear in results, and whether Google has any technical concerns about your site.

What Google Search Console shows you

Search Console answers questions like:

Which search terms (keywords) lead people to my site?
How often do my pages appear in Google search results (impressions)?
How many people actually click through to my site from those results?
Does Google have any trouble reading my site?
Are there pages Google could not index, and why?

The key reports in Search Console

Performance report

This is the most important report for most business owners. It shows:

Total clicksHow many times people clicked to your site from Google
Total impressionsHow many times your pages appeared in search results
Average click-through rate (CTR)The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click
Average positionThe average ranking of the highest-placed result from your site

The table underneath can be grouped by query (search term), page, country, device, search appearance, and date. The default view covers the last three months.

URL Inspection

Type any page URL from your site into the inspection bar at the top of Search Console to see exactly how Google sees that page. This is useful when you have published new content and want to check whether Google has found and indexed it.

Page indexing report

This shows which pages Google has indexed (added to its search results) and which ones it has not, and why. Some of Google's own pages still call it the Index coverage report, which was its earlier name. Common issues include:

Pages that were accidentally set to "no index"
Broken pages (404 errors)
Pages that redirect incorrectly

Core Web Vitals

This shows how your pages perform on Google's three Core Web Vitals metrics (LCP, INP and CLS) measured from real visitor data. Google says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems, though a good score on its own is no guarantee of a better position. Read more in our Core Web Vitals guide.

Sitemaps

You can submit your sitemap here to help Google discover all your pages. We take care of this when we set up your site.

Is Search Console the same as Google Analytics?

No, they are different tools that answer different questions:

Tool	What it answers
Search Console	How does Google see and rank my site?
Google Analytics 4	What do visitors do when they arrive?

One rule instead of ten table rows: each tool sees its own side of the click and nothing past it. That is why a ranking question can only be answered in Search Console, and a conversion question only in Analytics.

Read this as text

Search Console covers everything up to the moment somebody clicks: how often your pages appeared in Google’s results, what position they held, and which search terms people typed to find them. It also reports indexing and technical errors: all things that happen before a visit exists.

Google Analytics starts the instant somebody arrives: which pages they read, how long they stayed, where else they came from, and whether they filled in a form or bought something.

The click is the handover, and it is why the two tools cannot substitute for each other. Analytics never saw the search result, so it cannot tell you your ranking. Search Console never saw the visit, so it cannot tell you whether that visitor bought anything.

One partial exception: if you link the two, some Search Console query data appears inside Analytics. It is a copy of the same report, not Analytics seeing across the boundary.

You need both. See Search Console vs Analytics for a full comparison.

How does Search Console get connected to your site?

To use Search Console, Google needs to verify that you own the website. Chykalophia typically handles this by adding a verification tag via Google Tag Manager, or by uploading a small file to your server.

Google starts collecting data for a property as soon as someone adds it, even before verification finishes, but it takes a few days before there is anything worth looking at.

Historical data

Google Search Console only keeps 16 months of data. If you want to track trends over longer periods, export your data regularly or ask us about connecting it to a data tool.

Common questions

How do I access my Search Console?

Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with the Google account that has access to your property. If you do not have access yet, ask us to add you, or follow our guide on giving us access to Search Console for the reverse process.

Why is my site not showing any data in Search Console?

New properties can take a few days to populate. If it has been more than a week and you see no data, verify that ownership was confirmed correctly. Check our troubleshooting analytics guide.

Does Search Console affect my Google rankings?

No, using Search Console does not change your rankings. However, fixing errors it identifies (like broken pages or slow load times) can improve them.

What is a 'property' in Search Console?

A property is the thing Search Console reports on. For a website you choose one of two shapes: a Domain property (covers every subdomain and both http and https, and has to be verified through your domain provider's DNS settings) or a URL-prefix property (covers only URLs starting with the prefix you give, such as https://yoursite.com, and can be verified several ways). Search Console also has platform properties, for tracking how an account on a platform like Instagram, TikTok, X or YouTube performs in Google Search.