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Search Console

What people typed into Google before they saw you — every query, page, country and device, across five Google search surfaces.

#In 10 seconds

• This is Google's own record of you appearing in search results — what was typed, which of your pages came up, and how high.
• It is a separate connection from Google Analytics. Having one never gives you the other.
• Every number here lags two to three days behind today. That is Google's delay, not EOMA's.

#Before you start

• Google Search Console must be connected and a site chosen. See Search Console for the connection itself.
• Your site must already be verified in Google's own Search Console before EOMA can read it. EOMA reads what Google reports; it cannot grant itself access.
• Nothing else. Google Analytics is not required — the two screens are independent.

#Steps

#1 — Open it from the sidebar

┌─ sidebar ─────────────────────────┐
│  ▶ SEO                            │
│  ▼ Web Analytics                  │
│      Google Analytics             │
│    ● Search Console      ← here   │
│  ▶ Social Listening               │
└───────────────────────────────────┘

Web Analytics is its own section, and Search Console is the second of its two screens. The first, Google Analytics, answers a different question — see Web analytics.

#2 — Pick your window

┌──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Search Console   example.com  Owner   [7d][30d][90d][16m] │
└──────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Four windows, all counted in whole days. There is no hourly view here because Google does not report hourly. 16m is sixteen months, the furthest back Google keeps this data.

#3 — Choose the search surface

The row directly under the title — Web, Images, Video, News, Discover. It changes what every number on the page is about, so treat it as a mode rather than a filter.

#4 — Open a card, or a tab

The Overview tab shows every dimension as a collapsed card: one big number and its top few rows. Click a card to expand it into the full table, or use the tab strip to go straight to one.

#What you'll see

#The header — "Search Console"

The site address, a badge for your access level on it (Owner, Full access, Restricted or Unverified), and the window pills. A Partial badge appears beside them when the most recent day or two is still being counted by Google and may still change.

#The surface row — "Web · Images · Video · News · Discover"

Its own row, above the numbers it governs.

#The four totals — Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Avg. position

On one raised panel, each with its change against the window before.

#The tab strip — "Overview · Queries · Pages · Countries · Devices · Appearance"

Some tabs grey out on some surfaces. That is deliberate: Discover has no concept of a search query, and an empty Queries card would read as "you rank for nothing" rather than "this is not a search". Hover a greyed tab and it tells you which surface and dimension do not go together.

#The cards, on Overview

One per dimension: a tinted head, one big number, then the top rows with a bar showing how much of the total each took. The bar is the point — it shows whether one query carries you or a hundred share the load.

#The full table, inside an opened card

Query, Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Position, with Load more at the foot. Queries and Pages also get a filter box. A card fetches its table the first time you open it and never again, so the first open is the slow one.

#Reading the numbers

Clicks and Impressions — for example 380 clicks from 24,900 impressions. Your pages were shown in Google's results 24,900 times, and 380 of those turned into a visit. Impressions are demand you are already visible for; clicks are what you converted from it. The gap between them is the cheapest thing to improve in the whole product — you do not need a better ranking to win it.

CTR — for example 1.5%. Of everyone who saw you in results, fifteen in a thousand clicked. A low CTR on a query with plenty of impressions is almost always a title-and-description problem, not a ranking one: Google is already showing you and people are choosing someone else's wording.

Avg. position — for example 12.4. On average you sat twelfth. This is the one metric where down is better, and the change pill beside it is inverted to say so. Past roughly ten means page two, where clicks collapse — so 12.4 → 9.4 is worth far more than 32 → 22, even though both move ten places.

A query with impressions but no clicks. Google thought you were relevant enough to show and nobody picked you. Read the page it points at: usually you rank for a question your page does not visibly answer in its title.

The share bar in a card's top rows. How concentrated that dimension is. Three queries carrying most of your clicks is fragile — one ranking change takes the lot. A long flat spread is slower to build and much harder to lose.

The Partial badge. The most recent day or two is still being counted and will change. Never read a fall in the last day as a real fall; compare complete days only.

"Restricted" on the access badge. Google is giving EOMA a limited view of this site, so some rows may be missing. Ask whoever owns the Search Console property to raise EOMA's access to Full or Owner.

#When it goes wrong

#Related

• Web analytics — the other half of the section: who actually arrived, from every source
• Search Console — connecting it, and choosing a site
• SEO summary — where you stand in search without needing any connection