Google Search Console: Analyse and Fix Your Indexing Errors

Google Search Console: Definition, Purpose and Why It Matters for SEO and GEO

What Is Google Search Console (GSC) Used For, and Who Is It For?

Google Search Console (formerly known as "Webmaster Tools") is Google's free tool for understanding how a website performs in Google Search and whether its pages can be indexed. It is designed for marketing managers, SEO/GEO teams, agencies, and product or tech teams who need to manage visibility, diagnose crawling issues, and prioritise optimisations.

Its main value is practical: it shows which pages do (or do not) appear on Google, which queries trigger them, how many impressions they receive, how many clicks they generate, and which technical barriers prevent Google from crawling or indexing the site properly.

What GSC Actually Measures: Visibility, Indexing, Experience and Trust Signals

Search Console collects data from the interaction between your website and Google's index. It covers four complementary dimensions:

• SERP visibility: queries, pages, clicks, impressions, CTR and average position (the Performance report).
• Indexing and crawling: URL status, exclusion reasons, the Pages report, sitemaps, URL Inspection and index requests.
• Page experience and performance: signals linked to Core Web Vitals (via PageSpeed Insights) and mobile usability.
• Trust and security: HTTPS, manual actions and security issues.

In practice, these reports help you spot growth opportunities (rising queries, pages close to the top 3), fix technical blockers, and run a continuous content update process.

From Google Webmaster Tools to Google Search Console: Key Milestones

Originally launched as "Webmaster Tools", Search Console has evolved with a modernised interface and more actionable reports: structured data, security, Core Web Vitals, sitemaps, URL Inspection, and insights that make it easier to detect trends. Today, it remains the most direct way to understand how Google sees and serves your pages.

Where GSC Fits in a Modern Strategy: SEO, GEO and Visibility in LLM Experiences

In a data-led SEO strategy, Search Console is your measurement baseline: it helps you identify which pages to update, prioritise optimisations, and monitor impact after publishing (rankings, clicks, CTR and index coverage). It also supports a GEO (Generative Engine Optimisation) approach: even if visibility in AI assistants does not always translate into clicks, reaching the organic top 10 remains a critical foundation, as Google's generative experiences still rely heavily on organic results.

Creating a Google Search Console Account and Connecting Your Site

Choosing the Right Property Type: Domain vs URL Prefix

In the dashboard, you can add a property by choosing:

• Domain property: covers all variants (HTTP/HTTPS, subdomains). This is typically the best option for an overall view.
• URL prefix property: limited to a specific prefix (e.g. https://www.example.com/). Useful if you segment by subdomain or directory.

Verifying Ownership: Methods (DNS, HTML, Google Tag, Google Analytics)

There are several ways to confirm you own a given domain. Below are the available methods along with what to consider for each. For more detail on verification, see our dedicated guide.

Essential Settings After Connection: Users, Permissions and Alerts

Once verified, the property appears in the dashboard. Add multiple users with appropriate permissions (owners, full users, restricted users) so responsibilities are shared across SEO, content and technical teams. This is especially important when managing multiple environments (staging, subdomains, international versions).

Also check notifications in the interface and in Gmail regularly — indexing messages, security alerts and unusual error spikes all serve as early warning signals.

Robots.txt, Meta Directives and Canonicals: Avoiding Crawl Blockers

After verification, review your robots.txt to manage crawler behaviour, include your sitemaps, and prevent non-strategic pages from being indexed using the noindex directive. Good configuration helps control indexability and reduce duplicate-content issues.

In parallel, check canonical consistency on key pages: an incorrect canonical can cause Google to drop a page from the index in favour of another variant, even when the content appears correct.

Understanding the Performance Report to Manage Organic Traffic

Core KPIs: Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Average Position

The key KPIs available in Search Console are:

• The number of impressions for a given keyword or page, by country and by device
• The number of clicks for a given keyword or page, by country and by device
• The average position for a given keyword or page, by country and by device — particularly useful because it aggregates performance across all queries driving traffic to that page
• The average CTR for a given keyword or page, by country and by device

You can track how these KPIs evolve over time and filter by query, page, URL, country, device and more. For a deeper dive, see our guide to performance in Google Search Console.

Advanced Filters: Queries, Pages, Countries, Devices and Search Appearance

The report lets you segment data by queries, pages, countries, devices and date ranges. This granularity supports a genuinely data-driven approach and helps you prioritise actions that deliver measurable impact.

Where available, the Search Appearance tab can also help you connect CTR changes with enriched display formats (for example, results influenced by structured data).

Spotting Opportunities: Rising Queries, High-Potential Pages and Cannibalisation

Search Console automatically detects performance patterns and flags URLs with strong gains or sudden drops in impressions, clicks, average position or CTR. When performance declines, investigate the affected pages and fix the underlying issue. If nothing is obvious, a competitive analysis will likely be needed. The levers remain the same: content quality and backlinks compared to competitors. For more detail, see our article on Search Console insights.

In day-to-day work, three analyses tend to pay off quickly:

• Rising queries with low CTR: improve the title, meta description, editorial angle and content structure.
• Pages ranking positions 4–10 with high impressions: enrich content (depth, examples, data), strengthen internal linking, and verify search intent alignment.
• Cannibalisation: two pages splitting impressions across similar queries. Consolidate, differentiate intent, or adjust canonicalisation accordingly.

Measuring the Impact of Changes: Before/After and Intent Segmentation

After technical or editorial improvements, you will often see CTR and impressions increase on priority queries. Adding structured data or fixing technical errors can also improve visibility and rankings.

To avoid drawing hasty conclusions, always compare equivalent periods (accounting for seasonality), segment by intent (informational, transactional, local), and track mobile and desktop separately. A ranking improvement does not always translate into clicks immediately, particularly if the SERP becomes more "zero-click" or if an AI module takes up more space.

Indexing and Crawling: Fixing Issues That Block Your SEO

The Pages Report: Statuses, Common Causes and Action Priorities

For a given page, Search Console shows the indexing status in Google for the selected URL and allows you to request indexing. It is worth using after each publication to speed things up, though it remains manual and time-consuming.

Beyond performance measurement, Search Console also lists indexing issues across your site. You can identify which pages are indexed versus excluded, then prioritise based on two criteria: the business importance of the URL and the number of URLs affected.

Errors, Warnings and Exclusions: How to Interpret Them

Common indexing states and their practical fixes include:

• Server error (5xx): pages returning 5xx errors cannot be indexed.
  Fix: resolve the server-side issue with your IT team. A healthy site should not have 5xx pages.
• Redirect issues: redirecting pages are not indexed.
  Fix: prioritise final 301 redirects and avoid 302s. Update internal links to point directly to the final destination.
• Blocked by robots.txt: Googlebot is prevented from accessing the URL.
  Fix: review and adjust your robots.txt to ensure strategic pages are not blocked.
• Marked as noindex: the URL includes a noindex directive.
  Fix: remove it if the page should be indexed.
• Soft 404: the URL returns a page that resembles a 404 but with an HTTP 200 status, or extremely thin content.
  Fix: improve the content, or return a proper 404 or 410 if the page should not exist.
• Blocked due to unauthorised request (401): authentication is required to access the page.
  Fix: remove the restriction if the page should be public, or keep it if the page is private.
• Not found (404): the page cannot be indexed.
  Fix: implement a 301 redirect to a relevant replacement and address 404 errors promptly.
• Blocked due to access forbidden (403): the page is not accessible.
  Fix: review server permissions if the page should be indexable. More on 403 errors.
• Blocked due to another 4xx issue: other client-side errors (e.g. 410, 400, 406).
  Fix: resolve based on the specific status code returned.
• Crawled, currently not indexed: Google crawled the page but did not index it — often due to low relevance, thin content or complex rendering such as JavaScript.
  Fix: strengthen the content and internal linking.
• Discovered, currently not indexed: Google has found the page but is delaying indexing.
  Fix: increase the page's value and prominence via content quality and internal links.
• Alternate page with proper canonical tag: only the canonical version is indexed.
  Fix: if this is incorrect, revisit your canonicalisation.
• Duplicate without user-selected canonical: duplication without a canonical strategy.
  Fix: add a canonical tag on the primary page.
• Duplicate: Google chose a different canonical than the user: Google is not following your declared canonical.
  Fix: improve canonical consistency, content uniqueness and internal linking.
• Page with redirect: the URL redirects and cannot be indexed.
  Fix: validate the redirect's purpose and use 301s wherever possible.

URL Inspection: Diagnosis, Google-Selected Canonical, Rendering and Index Requests

The URL Inspection tool lets you verify indexing status, see which canonical URL Google has selected, review rendering signals, and request indexing after changes. Because it is a manual process, it is best reserved for high-value URLs — new pages, revenue-driving pages, or pages that have undergone significant updates.

Sitemaps: Best Practice, Monitoring and Real Coverage

Submitting a Sitemap Properly and Confirming It Has Been Processed

Submitting your XML sitemap in Search Console helps Google discover and index a large number of pages more efficiently. It is good practice to submit a new sitemap after bulk page creation or a major site migration. See our guide on sitemaps in Google Search Console to make the most of this process.

Aligning Your Sitemap and robots.txt Without Contradictions

It is recommended to include your sitemap location in your robots.txt file. Also ensure that URLs listed in your sitemap are not blocked by robots.txt or a noindex directive: these contradictions create "phantom coverage" and slow down useful indexing.

Tracking Indexed URLs from the Sitemap

Search Console reports how many pages were submitted via a sitemap versus how many are actually indexed. A high proportion of non-indexed pages often points to content quality issues, duplication, canonicalisation problems, or weak internal linking.

Improving Visibility in Google with Structured Data

Which Structured Data Types to Prioritise Based on Page Type

In the Enhancements section, Search Console shows how Google is processing your structured data. Depending on the page type, some markups are more valuable than others for machine readability and eligibility for rich results.

Breadcrumbs

Breadcrumb structured data helps Google understand site hierarchy and can improve how your pages are displayed in the SERPs.

FAQ (Use Sparingly)

A genuinely helpful FAQ — few questions, addressing real objections, with concise answers — can aid topic clarity. It should remain consistent with the main content and avoid repetition.

Reviews and Ratings

Structured review markup can enrich SERP display (for example, star ratings) and strengthen trust, provided the implementation is compliant and the reviews are verifiable.

Videos

Video structured data helps Google index video content hosted on your site and can improve its visibility in Search.

Events

Event markup can highlight your events in search results, driving qualified traffic and registrations.

Datasets

Declaring datasets can help Google surface your content in specialised searches — particularly useful for sites that publish structured information.

Monitoring Rich Results: Errors, Warnings and CTR Impact

In Search Console, rich result reports separate errors from warnings. Errors typically block eligibility, whilst warnings indicate partial markup. A useful habit is to cross-reference rich result reports with the Performance report: if impressions rise but clicks do not, the issue is often CTR (snippet quality, title, intent match) rather than indexing.

Page Experience and Security: Reports Worth Monitoring

Core Web Vitals: Diagnosing Issues and Prioritising Fixes

Search Console summarises Core Web Vitals (mobile and desktop) by grouping URLs. These indicators help prioritise fixes that have the greatest impact on user experience. As a benchmark, SiteW reports that only 40% of websites pass Google's Core Web Vitals assessment, and HubSpot reports that slower load times can increase bounce rate by 103% (see sources compiled in our article on SEO content strategy).

HTTPS: Typical Issues and Fixes

The tool flags non-secure pages and certificate problems, helping you ensure your entire site is served over HTTPS. See our guide on HTTPS in Google Search Console for more detail.

Manual Actions and Security Issues: Detect, Fix and Request a Review

If there is a manual action or security issue (hack, spam, injection), Search Console centralises the alerts. Once resolved, you can submit a reconsideration request to let Google know the necessary steps have been taken. Documenting your changes clearly — URLs, dates, corrective measures — often helps to speed up the review process.

Advanced Google Search Console Features

Links: Analysing Backlinks and Internal Links (and the Report's Limits)

Search Console shows which external sites link to yours and which pages attract the most links. It also highlights your most internally linked pages. However, it remains a high-level summary. For effective prioritisation, start with high-potential pages (high impressions, close to the top 3) and check whether they receive sufficient internal and external links.

Removals and Outdated Content: When (and How) to Use Them

You can use the tool to remove outdated content from Google results. This is useful after a hack, during a rebrand, or to quickly remove URLs that should no longer appear. Use it with care: it affects visibility but does not address root causes.

International Targeting: Best Practice (hreflang, Structures and Signals)

For multilingual or multi-country sites, consistency in hreflang tags, URL structures and canonicals becomes critical. Search Console helps you analyse performance by country and device, making it easier to detect mismatches — for example, a page performing well in the UK on desktop but not on mobile, or one language version cannibalising another.

Google Search Console API: Use Cases, Quotas and Practical Automation

The Google Search Console API allows you to extract performance data, check indexability information, and manage sitemaps (submit, delete, list). It is free to use, but subject to usage quotas. At the time of writing, it still cannot automatically submit URLs for indexing, which limits the scope for indexing automation.

Search Console vs Google Analytics: Differences and How to Use Them Together

What Search Console Does Better (Queries, Indexing, SERPs)

Search Console explains what happens on Google's results pages: queries, impressions, clicks, CTR, positions, and technical signals linked to crawling and indexing. It therefore sits upstream of the visit itself.

What Google Analytics Does Better (Behaviour, Conversions, Attribution)

Google Analytics is best suited to analysing user behaviour, conversions, customer journeys, attribution and overall site performance post-click — including beyond organic search.

Aligning the Data: Common Gaps and How to Interpret Them

Understanding the difference between Search Console and Google Analytics is fundamental, as it explains why discrepancies are structural rather than accidental. You cannot perfectly connect Keyword → Impressions → Clicks → Sessions, which complicates SEO ROI measurement. Differences also stem from reporting windows, counting methodology, consent settings and redirects. The most robust approach is to work with trends at page level (rather than isolated keywords) and connect those trends to conversions in Analytics.

Studies, Statistics and Measurable Impact: What Search Console Helps You Improve

Practical Examples: CTR, Rankings and Index Coverage After Optimisation

SEO benchmarks help you decide what to prioritise in Search Console. For example, Backlinko (2026) reports an average click distribution by ranking position where position 1 captures 27.6% of clicks, position 2 captures 15.8%, position 3 captures 11.0%, and results beyond page one remain below 1% (source: SEO statistics). In practical terms, that makes it highly worthwhile to identify pages ranking positions 4–10 with high impressions in Search Console: these are often the best candidates for "quick win" optimisations (snippet improvements, content enrichment, internal linking).

Another example from the 2025–2026 context: Semrush (2025) estimates that 60% of searches end without a click ("zero-click"), which means you need to interpret performance through both traffic and visibility (impressions, position, CTR). In SERPs that increasingly answer queries directly, weekly monitoring of impressions and CTR becomes a leading indicator — even before traffic starts to decline.

Finally, on the technical side, reducing errors (404, 403, 5xx), improving canonical consistency and aligning sitemap and robots.txt can all strengthen index coverage. Search Console serves here as the dashboard to verify that your fixes are actually being reflected on Google's side, even if propagation can take time.

Tracking Dashboard: KPIs, Review Frequency and Alerts

A straightforward dashboard — even within the native interface — is sufficient to manage the essentials:

• Performance KPIs: clicks, impressions, CTR, average position, by page and by country/device.
• Indexing KPIs: number of indexed URLs, excluded URLs, errors, and how these evolve over time.
• Experience KPIs: Core Web Vitals trends (URL groups to prioritise for fixes).

As a rule of thumb, review weekly to catch drops early and monthly to set priorities across content, technical improvements, internal linking and updates.

Recurring Issues and Delays: Understanding the Limits (Data, API, Latency)

Search Console is essential, but it is also limited and not particularly well maintained by Google. Known constraints include:

• The API still does not allow automated URL submissions for indexing, despite strong user demand.
• Some totals can be inconsistent with the sums shown in underlying tables (sampling effects).
• The Keyword → Impressions → Clicks → Sessions chain (Analytics) is not available, which complicates ROI measurement.
• Fixes can take considerable time to be reflected. A real example from Incremys: 35 x 404 errors were fixed on 18 December. One month later, Google had only processed 11 of those corrections, with 24 still marked as "processing".

Best Practices for Using Google Search Console Day to Day

Weekly Routine: Quick Checks That Drive Impact

• Monitor the Search Console performance report to spot declining pages (clicks, impressions, CTR) and rising queries.
• Review new indexing errors, especially 404s and 403s, and schedule fixes promptly.
• Check "crawled, currently not indexed" and "discovered, currently not indexed" pages: these often indicate thin content, duplication or weak internal linking.

Monthly Routine: Audit, Prioritisation and Editorial Action Plan

• Identify pages ranking positions 4–10 with high impressions and target the top 3.
• Analyse low CTR on key queries and refine titles, meta descriptions and editorial angle.
• Review sitemap coverage: indexing rate, recurring exclusions, and any robots/noindex contradictions.

Turning GSC Data into Content Decisions: Briefs, Internal Linking and Updates

• Spot emerging queries to plan new content, especially long-tail topics.
• Identify pages to rewrite or enrich (high impressions, low clicks, poor intent coverage).
• Strengthen internal linking to support strategic pages and reduce cannibalisation.
• Plan regular updates for key pages, using drops in impressions or rankings as signals to refresh content.

GEO Approach: Structuring Information for Search Engines and AI Assistants

Search Console does not directly measure whether your content is cited in AI assistants, but it helps you meet a crucial prerequisite: strong organic visibility in Google. From a GEO perspective, prioritise content that is easy to extract: descriptive headings, concise answers at the start of sections, lists, tables, cited sources and relevant structured data. This structuring also improves user experience and can support CTR and rankings in traditional SERPs.

How Incremys Helps You Get More Value from Google Search Console

SEO 360° Audit: Diagnosis, Prioritisation and Action Plan

The Incremys SEO 360° Audit module consolidates all issues detected in Search Console — indexing, security, sitemaps, crawling — and goes further through semantic and competitive analysis. You gain a more complete picture to prioritise each optimisation effectively.

Performance Reporting: Clear, Actionable Reporting with an ROI Focus

The Incremys Performance Reporting module aggregates available KPIs (impressions, clicks, rankings and URL-level trends) to make reporting easier to read, analyse and scale — particularly when managing multiple websites or markets. Incremys also integrates both Google Search Console and Google Analytics via API as part of a 360° SEO SaaS solution.

Customer Case Study: Quantified Results and Key Takeaways

+65% Organic Traffic in 6 Months

The Jardindeco case study illustrates the value of a structured SEO approach. Since 2019, more than 600 optimised pieces of content have been created, with an average output of 250 per year. Between 2019 and 2021, average monthly SEO traffic increased 3.5x, rising from 13,000 to 47,000 visitors. Over just 6 months of support, Jardindeco grew its organic traffic by 65%.

Improved Average Position on Strategic Queries

The number of keywords ranking on page one increased fourfold between June 2019 and June 2021, from 500 to 2,000. Strategic rankings were achieved: "electric grill" reached position 0, "brick barbecue" ranked in the top 3, and "summer kitchen" reached position 5.

-80% Indexing Errors

Using the Incremys platform, Jardindeco was able to detect and fix the majority of indexing errors, primarily through data-led prioritisation and technical audit capabilities. Errors linked to internal linking and HTML implementation were reduced by 80%.

Key Steps: Method, Deployment and Control via GSC

After a negative experience with an SEO agency that lacked both tools and methodology, Jardindeco chose Incremys. The platform enabled the team to:

• Identify and prioritise the highest-impact technical and semantic issues
• Rethink the site architecture to improve content hierarchy
• Assign editorial briefs and centralise the production plan
• Build team autonomy, cut information research time by a factor of two to three, and manage the full SEO strategy in one place
• Save more than €5,000 per month in SEA spend as qualified organic traffic grew

Charlène Montheil, SEO Manager at Jardindeco, says: "Before, we were producing content with no return on investment, largely due to technical problems on our site. With the Incremys methodology and data-led prioritisation, we now have clear evidence to guide our decisions and help us invest in what delivers genuine value. The whole team saves time and becomes more autonomous."

Google Search Console FAQ

How Does Google Search Console Work?

Search Console gathers information about how your site is crawled, indexed and displayed in Google Search. It provides metrics (impressions, clicks, CTR, position) and technical reports (coverage, sitemaps, errors) to help you diagnose issues and prioritise actions that improve visibility.

How Do I Set Up and Verify Google Search Console for a Website?

Go to search.google.com/search-console, add a property (domain or URL prefix), then verify it using the method that suits your access (DNS, HTML file, HTML tag, Google Tag Manager or Analytics tracking code). Then configure users and submit your sitemaps.

Why Use Google Search Console Alongside an SEO Tool?

Because it gives you Google's perspective on your visibility and technical blockers (before the click), whilst an SEO platform or Analytics tool is better suited to prioritising at scale, industrialising analysis, structuring content production and linking work to business outcomes (conversions, ROI, planning, competitive positioning). The two are complementary.

What Is the Difference Between Google Search Console and Google Analytics?

Search Console measures visibility in Google Search (impressions, clicks, CTR, position, indexing). Google Analytics measures what happens on your website after the click (sessions, engagement, conversions). They complement each other, but their figures are not directly comparable.

What Should I Do If a Page Is Crawled but Not Indexed?

First, check intent alignment and content value (thin content, duplication, low usefulness), then strengthen internal linking to the page. Also check which canonical Google has selected in URL Inspection, and confirm there is no noindex directive applied. If everything appears correct, the issue may relate to a lack of domain authority. In that case, you will need to earn links to your domain and ideally to the page itself.

How Can I Tell Whether an Issue Comes from robots.txt, noindex or a Canonical?

Start with URL Inspection: it indicates whether crawling is permitted, whether a noindex directive has been detected, and which canonical URL Google has selected. Then check your robots.txt file and the canonical tag in the HTML (or HTTP header).

Conclusion: Search Console in the Age of Generative AI and GEO

Roadmap: From Setup to Measurable Gains

Search Console remains a cornerstone for managing visibility, index coverage and a site's technical health. The most effective roadmap is to (1) verify the property correctly, (2) align robots.txt, sitemaps, noindex directives and canonicals, (3) use the Performance report to prioritise high-potential pages, and (4) measure before and after to confirm gains in CTR, rankings, clicks and impressions.

Looking Ahead: The Evolution of GSC, AI-Assisted Search and Opportunities for Brands

SEO is moving towards a more "zero-click", AI-assisted world. In that context, Search Console remains indispensable for tracking the gap between visibility (impressions) and traffic (clicks), but it is no longer sufficient on its own to measure presence in generative answers. A hybrid approach works best: consolidate your Google foundations (indexing, top 10, CTR) whilst structuring content for reuse and citation (extractable formats, cited sources, structured data and regular updates). To explore these topics further, visit the Incremys blog.