Google Search Console is a free tool that shows how your site performs in Google search and whether Google can index your pages. Verify your site, submit a sitemap, read the Performance and Pages reports, test single URLs, and check in once a month. You do not need technical skills to get real value from it.
Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that shows how your website appears in search: which searches bring people to you, which pages Google has indexed, and what is broken. For a Christchurch business owner it is the closest thing to a straight answer from Google itself. Set it up once, then give it a short, regular look.
1. Add and verify your site
Go to Search Console and sign in with a Google account you will keep long term. Avoid tying it to a former web designer's personal login.
You will be asked to choose a property type. In general terms, a domain property covers every version of your site (www and non-www, http and https, and any subdomains), and you verify it by adding a record at your domain registrar. A URL-prefix property covers one exact address and offers easier methods, such as an HTML tag or file. The domain option is usually the better long-term choice if you can reach your DNS settings.
Do this early. Your history starts building once you are verified, and you will want that record if rankings ever dip. If you are unsure where to begin when things go wrong, recovering from a ranking drop explains how that history gets used. If the site is brand new, the first 90 days for a new website shows where this fits in the early plan.
2. Submit your sitemap
A sitemap is a file listing the pages you want Google to find. Most website builders and SEO plugins create one for you, usually at your address followed by /sitemap.xml. In Search Console, open the Sitemaps section, paste the address and submit.
Check the status says Success. If it reports an error, the file is probably missing or broken. We cover what a good one looks like in our sitemap and robots.txt guide.
3. Read the Performance report
This is the report most owners come back to. It shows four numbers:
- Clicks: how many times someone clicked through to your site from Google.
- Impressions: how many times a page of yours appeared in results, whether or not anyone clicked.
- CTR (click-through rate): clicks divided by impressions.
- Average position: where your pages sat on average. This is an average across many searches, locations and devices, so a position of 8 does not mean you are eighth for everyone.
Open the Queries tab to see the actual searches, then the Pages tab to see which URLs earn the clicks. Filter to a single page and you can see its searches. Say a Riccarton physio notices that their pain-treatment page gets plenty of impressions but few clicks. That points to a weak title or description rather than a ranking problem, and it is a cheap fix. If you are choosing what to target in the first place, a beginner's keyword research process pairs well with this report.
4. Check the Pages report
Open Pages (under Indexing). It splits your URLs into indexed and not indexed, with a reason beside each group. Some common statuses:
- Crawled - currently not indexed: Google visited but chose not to include the page. Often a quality or duplication signal.
- Discovered - currently not indexed: Google knows the URL exists but has not crawled it yet.
- Not found (404): the page does not exist. Fine for old deleted pages, a problem if internal links still point there.
- Excluded by noindex tag: someone told Google to leave the page out. Check it was deliberate.
- Page with redirect: normal for redirected addresses.
Not every excluded URL is a fault. Thank-you pages and tag archives are often better left out. Focus on pages that should earn you enquiries.
5. Inspect a single URL
Paste any address from your site into the bar at the top. Search Console tells you whether the page is indexed, when Google last crawled it, and which canonical it chose. The live test fetches the page as Google sees it now.
If you have just made a real change, such as publishing a new service page, you can request indexing. Google limits how many requests you can make, and it does not guarantee inclusion. Do not hit the button repeatedly.
6. Set a monthly routine
Pick one day a month and do the same short check:
- Performance, last three months compared with the previous three: are clicks and impressions broadly steady or growing?
- Pages: has the number of not-indexed pages jumped, or has an important page dropped out?
- Sitemaps: still successful?
- Any messages from Google about security or manual actions.
Expect fluctuation. A bad week is rarely a verdict, and reacting to every dip leads to unnecessary changes. For the wider picture, the numbers that show whether SEO is working puts these reports alongside enquiries and calls.
Search Console will not tell you why a competitor outranks you, and it does not replace a proper review. It reports what Google saw, not what to do about it. There is also a Search Console help centre if you want Google's own wording.
If you would like someone to read these reports with you and turn them into a short fix list, our SEO audits do exactly that, or you can start with a free SEO audit and see what Search Console is already hinting at on your site.
