Google Search Console is a free service from Google that helps you monitor and improve how your website appears in Google Search. You check whether Google can find and crawl your pages, fix indexing problems and see which search queries your site appears for. Search Console also alerts you when Google runs into indexing or spam issues.
What can you do with it?
- The Performance report shows clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position per query, page, country and device.
- The Page indexing report shows which pages are and are not in Google, and why.
- URL Inspection shows which HTML Google received for a single page and lets you request a recrawl.
- Under Sitemaps you submit your XML sitemap.
Do you need to sign up to appear in Google?
No. Google writes that you do not have to sign up for Search Console to appear in search results. Search Console does help you understand how Google sees your site.
Example
Say a services page suddenly stops getting visitors from Google. URL Inspection shows that Google found a noindex. Once it has been removed, you request a new crawl through the same inspection.
Common mistake
Reading average position as a fixed spot. It is an average of your site’s topmost position across all impressions. Search Console also only covers Google Search; mentions in AI assistants are measured differently, as explained in How do you measure your visibility in AI answers?