Google Search Console for Beginners: 5 Reports

The Google Search Console is a free tool that Google uses to show website owners how their pages perform in search. For beginners, five reports are enough: Performance (what you are found for), Page indexing (which pages Google knows), Core Web Vitals (load time), Improvements (structured data) and the URL inspection for individual pages.

Many SMEs have never set up Search Console, or it was created during the last website project and has not been opened since. Yet it is the most important data source for understanding why a website is found or not. At bettersorted.de, it was the basis for growth in the SEO case study.

Set up in three steps

Sign in with a Google account at search.google.com/search-console.
Add the website as a property, preferably as a “Domain”, so that all variants (with and without www) are covered.
Confirm ownership, usually via a DNS record with your domain provider. Then submit the sitemap.

Data only appears from the day of setup onward; there is no retroactive data. That is why it is worth setting up Search Console immediately.

Report 1: Performance

The most important report. It shows four values:

Value	Meaning
Clicks	How often someone clicked on your website in the search results
Impressions	How often your website appeared in the results
CTR (click-through rate)	Clicks divided by impressions
Position	Average position of your best result

Below you can see the search queries and pages. The most valuable analysis for beginners: pages with many impressions, a good position (1–10), and few clicks. That is where it is worth revising the page title and description. Pages in positions 11–20 are candidates for better content; they are just short of page one.

How to read daily values correctly

Individual days fluctuate strongly, and the last two to three days are often still incomplete. Compare weeks or months. Clicks from Google’s AI Overviews and AI Mode are included in the search type “Web” and are not reported separately.

Report 2: Page indexing

Shows which pages are in the Google index and which are not, with a reason. “Crawled – currently not indexed” often means Google considers the page too thin or duplicate. “Not found (404)” after a relaunch means redirects are missing.

Report 3: Core Web Vitals

Measures load time and stability from real visits, separated by mobile and desktop. You should address pages marked “Poor” first; the cause is usually large images or many scripts.

Report 4: Enhancements

Here, Google reports errors in structured data, for example for FAQs, events, or job postings. Structured data helps search engines classify content correctly, see structured data.

Report 5: URL inspection

At the top of the search bar, enter a single URL and see whether it is indexed. After an important change, you can request indexing there so that Google recrawls the page faster.

A monthly ritual

Performance: compare clicks and impressions with the previous month.
Top pages with few clicks: improve title and description.
New search queries: Are there questions that do not yet have their own page?
Indexing: Check new errors.

For those who do not want to do this themselves: At AI visibility of bettersorted we connect Search Console with your website and our AI, which continuously handles this analysis and suggests improvements, as in the article Website with AI content engine described.

Frequently asked questions

Is Google Search Console free of charge?

Yes. You only need a Google account and must prove that you own the website, usually via an entry at your domain provider.

What is the difference between Search Console and Google Analytics?

Search Console shows what happens before the click: what you appear for in Google Search and how often you are clicked. Google Analytics shows what visitors do on your website afterward, for example whether they submit an inquiry.

Why does Search Console show different numbers than Google Analytics?

They measure different things. Analytics only records visitors who have consented to statistics tracking and counts visits from all sources. Search Console counts clicks from Google Search, regardless of cookies.

What is a good click-through rate?

That depends heavily on the position and on AI overviews. Positions 1 to 3 typically have significantly higher click-through rates than positions 8 to 10. Compare your own pages with each other rather than with general average values.

As of: October 2026.