Google Search Console Tips
Google Search Console (previously called Webmaster Tools) is a free tool provided by Google for website owners to monitor performance and traffic. GSC also offers search engine optimization recommendations and fixes. Our SEO Office Hours recaps below cover a range of advice from Google to help you better understand and get the most out of this fundamental SEO tool.
Move to New Search Console to be Completed by End of 2019
John revealed that the Search Console team have the goal of finishing the move to the new version of Search Console by the end of 2019 at the latest.
Expect Fluctuations in URL Inspection Tool When URL is New or Being Reprocessed
Fluctuation in the data provided in the URL Inspection Tool can be expected if the URL is being reprocessed or if it is a new page. For example, the selected canonical might not show in the Inspection Tool for a while until Google has finished processing the canonical.
Submit Detailed Feedback on New GSC Features Through Feedback Form
John encourages detailed feedback on changes to Search Console through the feedback form, as it gives the team working on this input on what should be prioritized.
Robots.txt Testing Tool Will Be Moved to the New GSC
There have been no announcements around removing this feature, so it should be moved across to the new Google Search Console. There isn’t a timeline on when this will happen yet.
GSC Mobile Usability & Structured Data Reports Feature Representative Sample of URLs
The Mobile Usability report and Structured Data reports in Search Console are based on a significant sample of the pages on your site and aren’t meant to be a comprehensive list.
Google Improving Warnings in GSC to Trigger Based on Stable Version of Site
Google are working on improving Search Console so that warnings are triggered based on the stable version of the website. John has seen instances where Google is temporarily unable to fetch resources, which trigger a warning in Search Console.
Google Will Deprecate Some Features From Old Version of GSC
Google will continue to migrate features from the old version of Search Console to the new version, however some features won’t be migrated and will be deprecated e.g. the Crawl Errors section.
GSC Incorrectly Flags Pages as Not Mobile-friendly if it Doesn’t Have Capacity to Fetch CSS
Search Console can incorrectly flag pages as not being mobile-friendly if the site’s server is too slow for Google to fetch the CSS files for these pages. John said that you may see individual pages that flag this error and they may fluctuate over time, but it isn’t an issue if you can see that the page is mobile-friendly.
The Performance Report in the New GSC Only Shows Errors That Impact Websites
The performance report in GSC won’t include all 404 errors like the old one as John explained that it is more useful to show errors that actually impact a website in terms of what users will land on.
A Spike in GSC Impressions but Not Clicks Suggests Move from Page 2 to the Bottom of Page 1
If there is a significant increase in impressions for a keyword in GSC but clicks remain consistent, this suggests that a page that was previously ranking on page 2 has moved up to the bottom of page 1. The impressions shoot up for page 1 but the clicks don’t increase as much for the bottom results of page 1.