SEO glossary: Google Search Console (GSC)

 

What is the Google Search Console (GSC)?

The Google Search Console is an administrative interface. Webmasters make various settings here and receive interesting information about their project. This includes, for example, the organic search results through which your domain is found.

 

The Google Search Console is also ideal for getting more out of your own project. Search engine optimizers in particular see clear potential here to expand their project and increase their reach. With targeted measures, traffic can be increased in this way.

 

Information such as listings and statistics on incoming links, possible security problems and user-friendliness are also extremely useful.

 

What are the features of Google Search Console?

A look at the navigation bar of Google Search Console shows that it is divided into different sections. Here webmasters can find all setting options and data sets.

 

Included are the following areas:

 

Overview and performance

 

• Overview: Here webmasters get important information like performance and coverage in one summary
• Performance: Which search terms do visitors use to reach the website? And which URLs or subpages are found under which search terms? The performance area provides information about this.
• URL check: How is a URL displayed from Google's point of view? The URL check shows it.

 

Index

 

• Coverage: How many subpages have been submitted to Google and how many of them have been examined? The non-indexed pages are also displayed here.
• Sitemaps: Here you have the possibility to deposit sitemaps. Already submitted sitemaps and their status are displayed.
• Remove: Would you like to remove certain URLs from Google's index? You can do this here.

 

Improvements

 

• Speed: What about the speed of individual subpages? Which ones are particularly fast and where do you need to help out?
• User-friendliness on mobile devices: Is everything okay with the subpages in terms of optimization for mobile devices? Which pages are not yet suitable for this?
• Structured data: Google Search Console also offers important information on the topic of structured data.

 

Safety and manual measures

 

• Manual action: Was there any manual action taken on the part of a Google employee to PENALTYthe corresponding entry can be found here
• Security issues: If Google discovers subpages that have fallen victim to hackers, they are listed here

 

Links

 

• Here all incoming links from other websites are listed in detail

 

Settings

 

• If there is a change of address or general changes to the Property, they are made here

 

 

How to create a property?

If no property has yet been created in the Google Search Console, Google calls directly to the domain entry. Afterwards, webmasters have the option of adding a complete domain or a URL prefix.

 

Afterwards, the domain only needs to be verified. This is done, for example, by uploading a predefined HTML page. After that, all statistics and data are available.