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.
Disavowed Links Aren’t Removed From GSC Links Report
Links that have been disavowed will still show up in the links report in Google Search Console. This doesn’t mean that disavowing the links hasn’t worked, rather this is just how the links are reported.
Structured Data Will Still be Supported in New Version of GSC
John can’t confirm how structured data will be reported in the new Search Console. However, structured data will continue to be supported and will likely be shown in a slightly different way compared to the old version of Search Console.
URL Inspection Tool Could Change to Include Desktop Rendered Screenshot
John cannot confirm that the URL Inspection tool will be changing to include a screenshot of the desktop rendered version of pages. However, John admitted that this is something that is missing and that he will put it on the Search Console team’s radar.
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.