google-search-console

# Analytics: Google Search Console

Guides analysis of Google Search Console (GSC) data: performance metrics, indexing, sitemaps, Core Web Vitals, and rich results. Covers best practices for monthly monitoring and actionable insights.

**When invoking**: On **first use**, if helpful, open with 1-2 sentences on what this skill covers and why it matters, then provide the main output. On **subsequent use** or when the user asks to skip, go directly to the main output.

## Scope

- **Performance**: Clicks, impressions, CTR, average position; API for export
- **Insights**: Simplified overview; top/trending content and queries
- **Indexing**: Pages indexed, pages not indexed, reasons (Coverage)
- **Technical**: Sitemaps, Core Web Vitals, Enhancements
- **API**: searchanalytics.query for programmatic access
- **Methodology**: How to read charts, avoid common mistakes, correlate with releases

## Analysis Best Practices

### Chart Reading

| Practice | Why |
|----------|-----|
| **Focus one metric at a time** | Stacked bar charts hide fluctuations; toggle off other metrics to see each clearly |
| **Don't compare just two points** | End-of-month vs prior month misses mid-month drama; examine full trend |
| **Check beyond top 10** | Many reports default to top 10; scroll or paginate for more rows |
| **Screenshot charts** | GSC retains limited history; save images for future reference |
| **Record in spreadsheet** | Export at month-end; use formulas to track correlations over time |
| **Track release dates** | Join dev standups, read release notes; correlate GSC shifts with deployments |

### Investigation Workflow

1. **Pinpoint date**: When did the metric change?
2. **Correlate**: Any releases, CMS changes, server maintenance, third-party code?
3. **Decide**: Investigate, correct, overlook, or monitor closely
4. **Loop in**: Product or dev team for root cause

## Key Reports & Metrics

### 1. Performance (Search Results)

**Location**: Performance ? Search results

| Metric | Use |
|--------|-----|
| **Clicks** | Traffic from Google Search |
| **Impressions** | How often site appeared in results |
| **CTR** | Whether users think page answers query |
| **Average position** | Ranking trend |

**Dimensions**: Query, page, country, device, date. Filter by search type: web, image, video, news. Use to find low-CTR high-impression pages (title/meta optimization opportunities).

**Search appearance**: AMP, blue link, rich results (filterable in UI and API).

#### CTR Benchmarks by Position

Use to compare actual CTR vs expected. Benchmarks vary by SERP features (AI Overviews, featured snippets). **Zero-click**: When SERP features satisfy intent without a click, organic CTR drops; factor into expectations. See **serp-features** (Zero-Click section), **featured-snippet**. Clean SERPs:

| Position | Expected CTR (baseline) | With AI Overviews (lower) |
|----------|-------------------------|---------------------------|
| 1 | 25-35% | ~19% |
| 2 | 12-18% | ~12% |
| 3 | 8-12% | ~7% |
| 4-5 | 5-7% | ~5% |
| 6-10 | 2-5% | 2-5% |

**Interpretation**: If actual CTR is below expected for your position, prioritize title/meta optimization. Over 90% of first-page results have CTR below 10%; significant upside exists.

#### Low CTR, High Impressions: Optimization Workflow

1. **Identify**: Sort by impressions; filter positions 1-10; 1,000+ monthly impressions
2. **Compare**: Actual CTR vs expected for position (see table above)
3. **Gap**: e.g., position 4 at 2% CTR vs expected 5-7% ? ~3-5% uplift potential
4. **Action**: Optimize title and meta per **title-tag**, **meta-description**; add schema for rich results (+10–20% clicks)

#### Rich Results & CTR

Pages with review stars, FAQ schema, or other rich snippets see 10-20% more clicks. See **schema-markup**.

### 2. Insights Report

**Location**: Performance ? Insights (or Overview)

Simplified overview; replaces standalone Search Console Insights. Data from GSC only (no GA since Dec 2024).

| Card | Use |
|------|-----|
| **Clicks and impressions** | Site visibility and click effectiveness |
| **Your content** | Top, trending up, trending down pages |
| **Queries leading to your site** | Top, trending up, trending down queries |
| **Top countries** | Geographic audience |
| **Branded vs non-branded** | Brand recognition (AI-labeled; may mislabel) |
| **Additional traffic sources** | Image, Video, News search, Discover |

**Trending**: Based on click change vs previous period. Click items to jump to Performance report filtered to that item.

**Query groups**: Similar queries grouped; group name = best-performing query. Not available for sub-properties or low-impression sites.

### 3. Page Indexing (Coverage)

**Location**: Indexing ? Page indexing

**Status grouping** (updated): Valid + Valid with warning ? **Indexed**. Error + Excluded ? **Not indexed**.

**Indexed vs Not indexed are complementary**: Not all site content should be indexed. Login, admin, duplicate content, legal boilerplate, and low-value pages often intentionally use noindex. Indexed and non-indexed pages can reference each other (e.g., sitemap includes indexable URLs; noindex pages still exist and link internally). Non-indexed is not inherently a problem--investigate only when important pages are excluded. See indexing (noindex usage) and robots-txt (crawl control) for when to exclude.

| Metric | Action |
|--------|--------|
| **Pages indexed** | Turn off "Pages not indexed" to view alone; watch for drops |
| **Pages not indexed** | Turn off "Pages indexed" to view alone; watch for spikes. Distinguish intentional (noindex, robots) from accidental |

**Filter**: All submitted pages / Unsubmitted pages only (dropdown near top).

**Source column**: Indicates whether issue is caused by website or Google.

**Why pages are not indexed**: Drill into reasons and example URLs. Common culprits:

- Duplicate content
- Noindex tags
- Redirect errors
- 5xx errors
- 404 errors
- Blocked by robots.txt
- Discovered ? currently not indexed
- Crawled ? currently not indexed

**Quick check**: If trend line is stable, spend ~3 seconds; move on. Investigate if fourth column (trend) shifts.

**Diagnosis workflow**: GSC Coverage ? click Issue ? view sample URLs ? identify pattern ? fix (see indexing for fix actions).

**Coverage issue types**:

| Issue | Meaning | Next step |
|-------|---------|-----------|
| Crawled - currently not indexed | Crawled but not indexed | See indexing |
| Excluded by "noindex" tag | Intentionally excluded; often valid (login, admin, legal, etc.) | Ignore if expected; verify important pages not accidentally noindexed |
| Blocked by robots.txt | Crawl blocked | See **robots-txt**; may be intentional |
| Redirect / 404 | Redirect or missing | Fix URL or redirect |
| Duplicate / Canonical | Duplicate content | Usually OK; keep canonical |

**URL Inspection**: Verdicts: "URL is on Google," "URL is on Google, but has issues," "URL is not on Google." Use for important pages; verify canonical, internal links, sitemap; Request indexing if needed.

### 4. Video Indexing (If Applicable)

**Location**: Indexing ? Video indexing

- **Videos indexed** / **Videos not indexed**: Toggle off the other for clear view
- **Why videos are not indexed**: Thumbnail blocked, invalid size/format, not in main content, etc.

See **video-optimization** for video SEO; **youtube-seo** for YouTube.

### 5. XML Sitemaps

**Location**: Indexing ? Sitemaps

| Check | Action |
|------|--------|
| Status | Confirm each sitemap says "Success" |
| URLs indexed | Click sitemap ? see indexed count; drops indicate indexing issues |
| Bellwether sitemaps | For large sites, monitor templated sitemaps (by country, language, division) |

Enterprise: Glitches can block new URL crawling, cause hreflang confusion, delay fresh content discovery.

### 6. Core Web Vitals

**Location**: Experience ? Core Web Vitals

**Priority**: Mobile first (Google's higher expectations for mobile).

| Metric | Mobile | Desktop |
|--------|-------|---------|
| **Good URLs** | Target | Secondary |
| **Needs improvement** | Fix | Monitor |
| **Poor URLs** | Fix | Monitor |

**Why URLs don't have good score**: Click "Open report" → grouped example URLs by issue type. For threshold values and fixes, see **core-web-vitals**.

**Tip**: Historical chart is short; export to spreadsheet for longer trends. Share with dev team regularly; correlate dates with releases.

**Layout** (updated): Two tables--Poor or Need improvement; Good (click "View data about usable pages").

### 7. Enhancements (Rich Results)

**Location**: Experience ? Enhancements (Product snippets, Merchant listings under Shopping)

**Status** (updated): Two-tier?*invalid* (critical issues, may not appear) vs **valid** (no critical issues; may still have warnings). Warnings no longer top-level.

| Type | Examples |
|------|----------|
| Content | Breadcrumbs, FAQ, Events, Videos (see **video-optimization**), Job postings, Review snippets, Q&A, Discussion forums |
| Shopping | Product snippets, Merchant listings |
| Other | Recipes, Datasets, Hotels, Vacation rentals, Profile pages, Practice problems, Math solvers, Image metadata |

**Note**: Reports show sample items, not full list. Use URL Inspection for unlisted URLs.

### 8. AI Overviews (GSC Limitation)

- **GSC**: AI Overviews clicks/impressions are not separated from organic in Performance report.
- **Workaround**: Filter queries that tend to trigger AI Overviews to estimate AI-driven visibility:

```
(?i)^(who|what|where|when|why|how|which|is|are|can|does|should)|\b(vs|versus|compare|difference|pros and cons|guide|tutorial|best|top|list)\b
```

For GA4 AI traffic tracking, see **ai-traffic-tracking**.

### 9. Links & Disavow

**Location**: Links (inbound links), Security & Manual Actions

- **Links report**: View links to site and pages; anchor text distribution.
- **Disavow file**: Submit via GSC when necessary (manual penalty, toxic links). Use sparingly; over-disavowing can harm. See **backlink-analysis** for when to disavow.

## Search Console API

**Method**: `searchanalytics.query()` --exposes all Performance report data.

### Metrics

Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position.

### Dimensions

date, query, page, country, device. Search appearance (AMP, blue link, rich results). Filter by search type: web, image, video, news.

### Limits

| Limit | Value |
|-------|-------|
| Rows per day per search type per property | 50,000 |
| Rows per response | 25,000 (use pagination: startRow, rowLimit) |
| Data availability | 2-3 days after |

**Tip**: Run daily queries for one day of data to avoid quota. Verify data presence first (dimensions: date only, no filters).

**Optimization**: Gzip compression; `fields` parameter for partial responses; pagination for large datasets.

**References**: [Search Console API](https://developers.google.com/webmaster-tools/about), [searchanalytics.query](https://developers.google.com/webmaster-tools/v1/how-tos/search_analytics)

## Monthly Audit Checklist

- [ ] Performance: Clicks, impressions, CTR, position trends
- [ ] Insights: Top/trending content and queries (if available)
- [ ] Page indexing: Indexed vs not indexed (isolated views)
- [ ] Why not indexed: Trend lines for key reasons
- [ ] Sitemaps: All "Success"; indexed URL counts stable
- [ ] Core Web Vitals: Mobile good/needs improvement/poor
- [ ] Enhancements: No new invalid items (critical issues)
- [ ] Links: No manual actions; disavow only if needed (see **backlink-analysis**)
- [ ] Data exported to spreadsheet (month-end snapshot)
- [ ] Charts screenshotted for history
- [ ] Release notes reviewed for correlation

## Output Format

- **Summary**: Key findings, trends, anomalies
- **Metrics**: Specific numbers and date ranges
- **CTR analysis**: Actual vs expected by position; low-CTR high-impression pages
- **Title/meta opportunities**: Pages with CTR gap; specific optimization suggestions
- **Action items**: Prioritized fixes (indexing, CWV, sitemaps, enhancements, title/meta)
- **Correlation**: Suspected causes (releases, config changes)
- **Next steps**: Monitoring plan, dev handoff

## Related Skills

- **title-tag, meta-description, page-metadata**: Title and meta optimization for low-CTR pages; hreflang
- **xml-sitemap**: Fix sitemap errors
- **indexing**: Resolve indexing issues
- **core-web-vitals**: CWV optimization; fix LCP, INP, CLS
- **mobile-friendly**: Mobile Usability report; mobile-first indexing
- **schema-markup**: Fix structured data / rich results
- **backlink-analysis**: When to disavow; backlink audit
- **seo-monitoring**: Full SEO data analysis, benchmark