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.
Check URLs Match Exactly When GSC Reports a URL is Not in a Sitemap
If the URL Inspection tool says a page is indexed but not submitted in the XML sitemap, John recommends checking that the exact URL seen in Search Console is present in the sitemap. For example, you should check that there are no differences with trailing slashes or the case used.
Image URLs Can be Flagged as Soft 404s in GSC
The GSC Index Coverage report may flag image URLs as soft 404s if they have a non-standard image URL. This is because they are seen as a 200 page without any HTML.
GSC Inspect URL Tool Shows How Pages Appear for Web Search Not Image Search
If you’re seeing errors when testing image URLs in the GSC Inspect URL tool, this is because the tool only shows if results appear in web search and doesn’t reflect what is happening in image search.
Focus on Search Console Data When Reviewing Links to Disavow
If you choose to disavow links, use the data in Google Search Console as this will give you an accurate picture of what you need to focus on.
Data in the New Search Console Links Report Will Differ From the Old One
The new GSC links report is calculated slightly differently so it’s normal to see some differences in data from the old report. The new report is more accurate.
Google Have Removed Their Public URL Submission Feature
Google’s public URL submission tool has been removed but URLs can still be submitted through Search Console and sitemaps.
Use the URL Removal Tool & Sitemaps to Inform Google About Removed Pages
The URL Removal tool can be used to remove entire subdirectories from Google’s index usually within a day. When removing groups of URLs that don’t fall under one subdirectory you can make them 404s and tell Google they’ve changed recently via a sitemap file.
GSC New Performance Report & Old Crawl Errors Report Show Googlebot Data at Different Stages
The Performance report in the new Search Console shows the end of the pipeline of search analytics, taking into account errors that have been reprocessed. So this shows different data to the Crawl Errors report in the old Search Console which shows the unprocessed errors.
GSC Uncommon Download Warnings Don’t Include Sample URLs
Uncommon download warnings are shown to users and in Search Console. This means Google hasn’t been able to check the files downloaded from a site. Sample URLs aren’t provided, as people can abuse this by deleting the file and replacing it with a new one causing more issues.
GSC Will Still Have the Option to Fetch Desktop Pages After Mobile-first Indexing
Google still wants website owners to be able to check how their desktop pages appear even if the content is being taken from mobile for mobile-first indexing, so there will still be an option to fetch both page versions in GSC.