Google Search Console
Google's free tool that shows how your website appears in Google Search: the searches that find you, which pages are indexed, and any problems Google detects.
Google Search Console is a free service from Google for website owners. It used to be called Google Webmaster Tools. Once you verify that you own your site, usually by adding a TXT record to your DNS, it shows how Google sees and ranks your pages.
Its main reports include:
- Performance: the searches where your site appeared, with impressions, clicks and average position.
- Pages: which pages are indexed and why others aren’t.
- Sitemaps: where you submit your XML sitemap.
- Core Web Vitals: real-visitor speed results. See Core Web Vitals.
- Security issues and manual actions: hacked content, malware or penalties.
- Links: sites that link to yours.
Why it matters to a small business
It’s the only place to see the real searches that bring people to your site, which helps you decide what pages to write. It also warns you about problems you’d otherwise miss, like pages Google can’t index, a robots.txt mistake or a hacked site.
GA4 shows what visitors do after they arrive. Search Console shows how they found you in Google Search.
Example
A veterinary clinic checks Search Console and sees its “dog dental cleaning” page appears in many searches but rarely gets clicked. It rewrites the page title and description to be clearer and more specific, and clicks rise over the following weeks.
The account should be owned by the business, with your web company added as a user.
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