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New Google Search Console: Everything you need to know

Google has announced its new search console point at the beginning of the year. There are quite some new takeaway features in the new console point-like; URL Inspection tools and also the migration of the key reports and features. 

The console page shows the complete summary of your performance on Google Search. It also shows you the metrics that are crucial for you and even the notifications. The index coverage, mobile usability, AMP status are all covered in this. If your property has search enhancements or the AMP pages, then you can also view that information too. So overall, the new google search console can give a detailed and a very high-level overview of how your existing property is performing and also speaks about the critical issues that need to be addressed as soon as possible.

As we knew a few years ago, the Google Console, known as Google Webmaster Tools, changed the name of its toolkit as Google Search Console in 2015. So it was time to update our complete guide for the console — Google search. 

What is the New Google Search Console?

GSC or Google Search Control ( webmaster central ) allows webmasters control and maintain their websites via an official portal that is filled with helpful statistics. Website optimization for search engines is important for everyone owning a website, so Google provides data and tools for it. But, what exactly is different with the new Google search console?

In the new google console point, you can now review the data of the search analytics of the present to the previous 16 months. This will be reflected in your Performance Report. What is present in the Performance report? A performance report is a report which shows the website owner a few essential metrics that indicate how a particular website is performing in the Google Search results.

It generally means how often does your web page comes up or what is the average position of the page in the search results or the click-through rate and any other special features. These unique features can mean productive results. You can use the information on the performance report to see how your search traffic is changing, the search queries that are made on mobile smartphones, and in addition to that, you would also think of how to improve mobile targeting. You can also use the Performance report to see which pages have the highest and the lowest click-through rate.

You will now get a very accurate picture of your property or your website content that is using the Index Coverage. You will understand this report if you know how Google Search works. It shows you the indexing state of all the URLs which you visited on Google. It also has a summary page that shows the results for all the URLs in your property or the website that has a special status like error or valid or warning etc.  

The report which you see shows the index status of the pages that Google has tried to crawl on your site for indexing. It has grouped adequately by state and reason. You should always look for the increasing count of the indexed pages that are validated as and when your site grows. If there are any drops or spikes, you can always visit the troubleshooting section that can help you fix the issue. 

You will also see more information on the links that are pointing to your site and even within the website (internal links) in the links report. It will show you who links to your website the most or the list of your first linked pages. It also contains the top link domains, top linked pages from a specific site, top linked text, your pages that are related to your website.

The AMP Status report talks and aids in fixing any errors that prevent the AMP pages from appearing in the Google Search results. They have these specific AMP features. When you have the top-level view, that shows all the AMP pages that Google found some issues. In the report, you can click any issue on the report to see more about that issue.

 It will also include the sample list of the pages that were previously affected by the same issue and will also give the information to fix it. You will also get a process to notify Google what all changes you have made or what all you have fixed. 

The Mobile Usability report will show all the pages on your website or your property that has problems with the usability factor when you view you on the mobile devices. There is a top-level view where you can see all the pages with more than the threshold level of mobile usability problems. Then if you want to know more about the specific problem or the issue, you can click on it to know more about it. It will tell you the process of how to undo it and you can later notify Google about your fix.

There is a summary page in the report that shows a chart that describes the number of pages in the error or a valid state. And then you also have an impressions checkbox that shows the impressions on your website from the mobile devices. 

Under the URL inspection tool, you have the usual indexing, crawling, serving information for any URL directly from the Google index. This comes under the URL Inspection tool. The URL inspection tool which was recently launched a few months back, enables all the owners to run the inspection of the live version of the web page. It is a great way and source for debugging and also fixing the issues on a particular page. 

If not that, then they would help in confirming whether the reported issue still exists or not. Once the issue is fixed, Google is then requested to re-crawl and index the web page. With the new console, you will also get automatic alerts and also view the listing of pages that are being affected by Indexing, Crawling, AMP, Mobile Usability, etc. 

Here are some of the other things you can do when you received the report from eh new search console. Always share the information quickly to the relevant people whenever there is an issue. The faster it is fixed, the better it is. 

You should always notify the Google Webmaster once you have fixed any issue. They will review the changes made and then acknowledge if the issue is fixed for good or not. They will also return a complete and detailed log of the findings

Conclusion

Google developers want resourceful feedback so that as they are trying to evolve this new Search Console, it will become better and safer. They will also tune into their efforts to a more resourceful channel. If there is anything that could be better or any kind of functionality, you can give them feedback which is a few clicks away. 

When there is constructive criticism, more exciting and new capabilities are added to the New Search Console which makes it better.

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