Your ultimate guide to Google Search Console

Did you know that over 70% of web visits start in Google?

That means if you want people to find your eCommerce website, it’s important to rank as high as possible in the Google Search engine results!

Google Search Console lets you track your search engine performance and provides useful guidance to help you improve your results. Best of all… It’s free!

In this guide we’ll show you how to get started with Google Search Console, introduce you to its key features, and share our top tips for making the most of it.

Article topics

1. How to sign up for Google Search Console
2. How to navigate Google Search Console
3. Top tips for using Google Search Console
4. Google Search Console: Frequently asked questions

How to sign up for Google Search Console

To register your website, go to Google Search Console and click Start now.

You’ll be asked to sign in with the Google account of your choice.

Next, you’ll be asked to enter the details of the property you want to access in Google Search Console. When Google Search Console refers to a property, it means a thing you can manage in it, whether that’s a website, an entire domain, or a specific URL.

Domain is more comprehensive as it includes every variation of your website, including HTTP and HTTPS versions. It also includes any subdomains that are part of your site. However, you can only verify it one way – through DNS verification.

URL Prefix is specific to one exact address. For example, if you put the HTTPS version of your website URL, Google Search Console will not track the HTTP version. The benefit of using a URL Prefix is that you can verify it in multiple ways.

We recommend using Domain. While it’s trickier to verify your domain than it is a URL prefix, it’s much more thorough and provides an overview of your entire eCommerce site.

The next step is to verify ownership of the property you have provided details for. You can only monitor the performance of websites under your control.

If you have opted to monitor a domain, you need to carry out DNS verification. This is when you sign into your domain name provider and copy a line of code provided by Google Search Console into your DNS configuration.

If you have opted to monitor a URL prefix, as well as DNS verification, you can:

• Upload an HTML file to your website
• Add a meta tag to your site’s homepage
• Connect your Google Search Console account with your website’s Google Analytics or Google Tag Manager account

When you have completed your chosen verification method, click Verify to confirm. If you’ve opted to connect your account with your Google Analytics or Tag Manager account, or add a meta tag to your homepage, verification is immediate.

If you’ve opted to upload an HTML file or amend your DNS record, verification can take up to three days.

How to navigate Google Search Console

Once verification is complete, you’ll be able to use Google Search Console for your chosen property as a verified owner.

Let’s run through the different options on offer in the navigation bar on the left-hand side of Google Search Console.

Overview

This section provides a summary of the data available in Google Search Console and the condition of your website, including:

• Your site performance in Google Search
• Which pages are indexed
• How your core web vitals are affecting the user experience
• Any schema markup you’re using on your site

You may also see recommendations – ways to improve your site performance.

Insights

This section shows how your pages are performing, including how many clicks and impressions you’re receiving and which queries are driving organic traffic.

URL inspection

This section allows you to review a specific page on your website.

Enter a URL in the box and Google Search Console will advise if the page is indexed in Google and if there are any manual penalties in place.

You can also request a page to be re-indexed and view the code that Google’s search bots reviewed to index your page.

Find out more about indexing and technical SEO

Performance: Search results

This is one of the most helpful parts of Google Search Console, as it allows you to see which keywords you’re ranking for and in what position.

You can also monitor clicks, impressions (how many times users have seen links to your site in Google), and click-through rates. You can also connect your Google Search Console account to your Google Analytics account to see which queries lead to conversions.

Performance: Discover

Google Discover provides a personalised content feed on people’s mobile home screens and within the specific Google Discover app.

This section monitors how many clicks and impressions you’ve received within Google Discover.

Index: Pages

While URL inspection allows you to see if specific pages have been indexed, this section provides a general overview.

You can see which pages have been indexed in Google Search, as well as which ones haven’t been indexed and the reasons why.

Indexing: Videos

If you have videos on your website, this section will show if they’re indexed and if not, why not.

Indexing: Sitemaps

This section lists the sitemaps that are currently on your website, when they were last read, and if there were any issues with reading them.

You can also submit new sitemaps here.

A sitemap is a list of the pages on your website. While you don’t need to have a sitemap on your website for Google to be able to index your pages, it can make the process easier and faster as all the information about your site is in one place.

Indexing: Removals

This section allows you to hide a page in Google Search.

This is a temporary measure, with page removals lasting about six months. If you want to remove a page permanently, you will need to delete it from your website or use a noindex meta tag to tell Google not to index it.

You can also view pages that users have requested to be removed, and pages reported as adult content through Google SafeSearch.

Experience: Core Web Vitals

This section allows you to see the core web vitals for your website. These are a suite of metrics that determine your website performance and page speed.

Experience: HTTPS

This section shows how many pages on your website are being displayed as HTTPS rather than HTTP.

HTTPS pages are encrypted, protecting data transmitted between a user’s browser and your site. Google prefers these pages as they are more trustworthy and reliable.

Security and manual actions: Manual actions

This section shows you if you have a manual action against your website.

A manual action is a penalty applied to your site by Google’s search quality team. You can receive penalties for issues including spammy content or suspicious links.

If you receive a manual penalty, your web pages may be demoted in the search engine results, or even removed entirely.

If you have received a manual action in Google Search Console, you will be advised how to resolve it. You will be able to ask Google Search Console to reassess your website once you have done so.

Security and manual actions: Security issues

This section shows you if your website is affected by a security issue. For example, if it has been hacked or malware has been installed.

Like a manual penalty, a security issue may mean your web pages are demoted in the search engine results, and you will have to ask Google Search Console to reassess your site.

Links

This section shows you the internal and external links on your site.

Internal links can keep visitors on your site for longer and help the search bots index your pages, while external links are a key part of the search engine optimisation (SEO) process.

In this section you can:

• See which websites are linking to your pages
• Which pages are linked to from other pages on your website
• See what anchor text is being used

Achievements

This section provides a fun bit of gamification! Here you can track how your site is doing in the search engine results and reward your progress.

Settings

Here you can access the settings for your Google Search Console account and associated properties. In this section you can:

• Re-verify your permissions
• Assign permission to other people (if you are a verified owner)
• View other services associated with your account (for example, Google Analytics)
• Tell Google Search Console if your website changes address
• Export performance data to BigQuery, an AI data platform
• View your robots.txt files and crawl stats reports

Top tips for using Google Search Console

Google Search Console can feel daunting, especially if you’ve not used anything like it before!

Here are our tips for getting started and making the most of your data:

Sign up for email notifications

Google Search Console can send you emails about your site performance and if there are any issues, making it easy to keep up to date with what’s going on.

To enable emails, click on User settings in the top right corner of Google Search Console and under Email Preferences, select Enable Notification by email.

Focus on easy wins

It’s likely that your website will show up for a lot of searches under the Search Results panel.

One of the easiest things to do is to focus on the quick wins. Select Average Position and sort your queries by position.

Look where you’re appearing in positions 11 through 13. Odds are that with a bit of page optimisation, you can push through and start ranking on the first page of Google Search, within the top ten.

Export your data regularly

Google Search Console only stores data for 16 months, so if you want to track your performance over the long term, we recommend frequently backing up your data.

To do this, go to your chosen report, set the parameters to the timescales you want to track, and click the EXPORT link.

Google Search Console: Frequently asked questions

What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a web service from Google which allows you to monitor your site in the Google Search results.

It shows you how your site is performing for specific words and phrases, lets you track SEO, and identifies any errors or penalties that may prevent your website from ranking as high as it could.

It was previously known as Google Webmaster Tools.

Can I assign permissions to other people?

Yes – the person who has verified ownership of a property is the verified owner. Verified owners can add other owners, known as delegated owners.

Delegated owners can become verified owners by going through the verification process.

As well as delegated owners, verified owners can assign full users and restricted users, who have fewer permissions.

Can I only access Google data through Google Search Console?

Yes – Google Search Console only tracks your performance in Google. However, you can use other tools like Bing Webmaster Tools to track your performance in other search engines.

Does Google Search Console show retroactive data?

Yes – you can access data from before you signed up for Google Search Console. In most instances, you can get up to 16 months of data.

How many websites can I access through Google Search Console?

You can access up to 1,000 properties on one Google account. If you need to access more properties, you will need to use another Google account.

To switch properties, click on the drop-down menu under the Google Search Console logo and select the site you want to view data for.

Are there any alternatives to Google Search Console?

Most search engines have their own alternative to Google Search Console, where you can check what keywords people are using to access your site, and if you have accrued any penalties.

For example, Bing’s version of Google Search Console is called Bing Webmaster Tools, and you can import sites directly from Google Search Console to save time.

Yandex, Baidu, and Naver have their own systems too – ideal if you operate internationally.

Xigen: Your partner in eCommerce search

Google Search Console can provide you with lots of valuable insight into how your eCommerce store ranks in Google.

As it’s free, it’s definitely worth taking advantage of!

If you’ve signed up for Google Search Console and aren’t sure what to make of your data, drop us a line. We specialise in helping online stores rank in the search engines, and will put your Google Search Console account to good use.

From optimising your site for the right keywords to enhancing your internal linking, we’re the eCommerce digital marketing agency that delivers results.