# Top Tips for Novice Google Search Console Users

_Last updated: 2024-06-18_

Google Search Console is a free service provided by Google that helps you monitor and maintain your site's presence in Google Search results. It enables you to submit sitemaps, request indexing of new content, identify indexing errors, track search performance metrics, and receive notifications of manual penalties.

## What Google Search Console does

Google Search Console provides several core functions for managing search visibility. You can submit your sitemap to Google, submit new content for indexing, and view detailed statistics about your site's traffic and performance. The tool helps identify and fix errors preventing Google from indexing your content, and notifies you of manual actions—such as penalties for spammy content—taken against your site. By monitoring traffic and performance data, you can make changes to help your site rank higher in search results and avoid penalties that could harm your business.

## Detect and fix error pages

Google Search Console helps you detect error pages on your site—pages that return a 404 or other error code when accessed. Error pages can negatively impact your site's ranking ability in Google's search results and frustrate users, causing them to leave your site.

To fix error pages, you can redirect the old URL to a new one using a 301 redirect, or delete the old page and create a new one in its place.

## Address Page Experience issues

Google Search Console can detect page experience issues on your site. Page experience is a set of signals Google uses to measure how users interact with a web page, including load time, interactivity, and visual stability.

Users with a positive page experience are more likely to stay on your site and convert into customers or clients. Those with a negative page experience are more likely to leave and not return. You can improve page experience by optimizing images to reduce loading times or using CSS to improve interactivity.

## Track performance over time

Google Search Console includes several reports to track your website's performance:

- **Search Performance report**: Provides an overview of how your site performs in Google's search results, including click-through rate, impressions, and average position.
- **Pages report**: Shows how individual pages on your site are performing, including pageviews, unique pageviews, and time on page.
- **Queries report**: Shows which keywords users search for to find your site, with data on clicks, impressions, and average position.

By monitoring these reports, you can identify areas for improvement. For example, if your click-through rate is declining, you can take steps to improve it. If certain pages receive fewer views than others, you can modify those pages to increase their visibility.

## Inspect important URLs

Google Search Console's "Inspect URL" feature allows you to check if a specific URL has been crawled by Google and when it was last crawled. The tool shows when the URL was last crawled and any errors found.

If a URL is not being crawled, you can:

1. Submit the URL directly using the "Fetch as Google" feature to force immediate crawling.
2. Change the robots.txt file on your site to control which URLs Google crawls. Remove the "disallow" directive if you want all pages crawled.
3. Submit the URL to the Google Search Console team for manual review if crawling issues persist.

## Monitor organic performance

Organic traffic—visitors who find your site through Google searches—is critical for most websites. Google Search Console provides free, accurate data on organic performance, including click-through rate, impressions, and average position.

Google Analytics offers more detailed data than Search Console, such as bounce rate and time on page. Keyword tracking tools like Moz or SEMrush can track your rankings for specific keywords.

By monitoring organic performance, you can spot trends and make necessary changes. For example, if click-through rate declines, you can improve it. If certain pages receive fewer views, you can modify them to increase visibility.