Google Search Console: The 6 Reports Every Business Owner Should Check Monthly

Google Search Console (GSC) is free, connects directly to Google's own data about your site, and contains information that no third-party tool can fully replicate. Yet most business owners either do not have it set up, or set it up once and never check it again.

This guide walks through the six most important reports in GSC, what to look for in each one, how to act on what you find, and how to set up the tool if you have not already done so. If you have an SEO agency or specialist, you should still understand these reports - they are the primary evidence of whether your SEO investment is working.

Setting Up Google Search Console

If GSC is not already configured for your site, do this first.

Go to search.google.com/search-console
Sign in with your Google account
Click "Add property" and enter your website's URL (use the full URL including https://)
Choose a verification method. The easiest options are:

- HTML tag: Copy a meta tag and paste it into the <head> of your site. Most website builders (WordPress, Squarespace, Wix) have a setting for this. - Google Analytics: If GA4 is already set up on your site using the same Google account, verification is automatic. - Google Tag Manager: If GTM is installed, you can verify through it.

Click "Verify" and wait up to 24 hours for Google to confirm ownership.

Once verified, GSC begins collecting data. It does not show historical data before verification - another reason to set it up as early as possible. Initial data can take a few days to appear.

Report 1: Performance Report

Location: Performance > Search results

This is the report you will use most frequently. It shows you exactly how your site appears in Google search results.

The Four Core Metrics

Total Clicks: How many times someone clicked through to your site from Google search results.
Total Impressions: How many times your site appeared in search results, regardless of whether anyone clicked.
Average CTR: Click-through rate - clicks divided by impressions. A page ranking in position one typically has a CTR of 25 to 35% for informational queries and lower for commercial queries where ads occupy the top positions.
Average Position: Your average ranking position across all queries. Position 1 is the top result. Note that this is an average, so a page ranking second for some queries and tenth for others will average around six.

What to Look For

Rising impressions, flat clicks: Your pages are appearing more in search results but searchers are not clicking. This usually means your title tags and meta descriptions need improvement. See our guide on How to Write a Meta Description That Gets Clicks.

Good positions, low CTR: If you are ranking in the top five but your CTR is below 5%, something is wrong with your title or description. Either it does not match what the searcher is looking for, or a competitor's result looks more compelling.

Declining impressions: Your pages are disappearing from search results. This could indicate an algorithm update impact, indexing issues, or content being devalued.

Queries report: Click the "Queries" tab to see which specific keywords are driving impressions and clicks. Look for:

Keywords with lots of impressions and no clicks (position too low, or title needs improving)
Keywords you were not targeting but are appearing for (potential content opportunities)
Keywords where your ranking has dropped since last month

How to Use It Monthly

Compare the last 28 days to the previous 28-day period. Look for any keywords that dropped significantly. Check which pages lost impressions. Use the date comparison feature (click the date range and enable comparison mode).

Report 2: URL Inspection Tool

Location: URL Inspection (search bar at the top)

This tool lets you check the status of any individual URL on your site. Type a URL and Google tells you whether it is indexed, when it was last crawled, what the canonical URL is, and whether there are any issues.

How to Use It

Check important pages: Run your homepage, main service pages, and recent blog posts through the tool. Confirm they are indexed. "URL is on Google" with a green checkmark is what you want to see.
Request indexing for new content: After publishing a new page or making a significant update to an existing one, paste the URL into the inspection tool and click "Request Indexing". This prompts Google to crawl the page sooner than it would naturally.
Diagnose indexing failures: If a page shows "URL is not on Google", the tool will explain why. Common reasons include: the page is blocked by robots.txt, the page has a noindex tag, the page was never crawled, or Google found duplicate content and is indexing a different version.

What to Do With the Results

If a page you want indexed shows an error, investigate the specific reason GSC provides. A noindex tag accidentally applied to a published page is a common issue, particularly after site migrations or theme changes.

Report 3: Coverage Report (Now Called "Indexing")

Location: Indexing > Pages

This report shows the indexing status of all URLs on your site. It categorises pages into:

Indexed: Pages Google has successfully indexed. Good.
Not Indexed: Pages that are not in Google's index, broken down by reason.

The Most Important "Not Indexed" Reasons

Crawled - currently not indexed: Google found the page but decided not to index it. This usually means the content was deemed too thin, not unique enough, or not valuable enough to index. Review the page content quality.

Discovered - currently not indexed: Google knows about the page (probably from your sitemap) but has not crawled it yet. For large sites, this can mean Google is not allocating enough crawl budget to your site. For small sites, it usually resolves itself within a few weeks.

Duplicate without canonical tag: Multiple versions of the same content exist and Google is not sure which to index. Add rel="canonical" tags to specify the preferred version.

Alternate page with proper canonical tag: This is usually fine - it means you have explicitly told Google which version is canonical and Google is honouring that.

Excluded by 'noindex' tag: The page has a noindex meta tag. If this is intentional (e.g., a thank-you page or admin page), this is correct. If it is a page you want indexed, remove the tag.

404 Not Found: Pages that return a 404 error. Fix by redirecting to the most relevant live page, or restore the content.

What to Do Monthly

Check the trend line. Is the number of indexed pages growing? Is the number of "not indexed" pages growing? A sudden increase in crawl errors or dropped pages warrants investigation. Export the list of non-indexed pages and prioritise fixing the ones that should be indexed.

Report 4: Core Web Vitals Report

Location: Experience > Core Web Vitals

Core Web Vitals are a set of page experience metrics Google uses as a ranking signal. The three metrics are:

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint): How long it takes for the main content of the page to load. Google's threshold is under 2.5 seconds for "Good".
INP (Interaction to Next Paint): How responsive the page is to user interactions like clicks or key presses. Good is under 200 milliseconds. (INP replaced FID as the interactivity metric in 2024.)
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift): How much the page layout shifts unexpectedly during loading. Good is a score under 0.1. This is caused by images without dimensions, ads loading late, or fonts swapping.

How to Read the Report

GSC shows a breakdown of pages into "Good", "Needs Improvement", and "Poor" categories for both mobile and desktop. Click into any category to see the affected URLs and which specific metric is failing.

What to Do With It

Pages rated "Poor" have a direct negative impact on rankings. Fix them first. Common fixes:

LCP: Compress and properly size images, use a CDN, enable browser caching, reduce render-blocking scripts.
INP: Reduce JavaScript execution time, break up long tasks, defer non-critical scripts.
CLS: Always specify width and height on images and video elements, avoid injecting content above existing content.

After making fixes, use the URL Inspection tool to request re-crawling of affected pages.

Report 5: Manual Actions

Location: Security & Manual Actions > Manual Actions

A manual action is a human-applied penalty from Google's spam team. Unlike algorithmic demotions (which happen automatically), manual actions are triggered when a Google reviewer finds that your site violates their policies.

Common Manual Actions

Unnatural links to your site: Google believes you have engaged in link schemes. You need to disavow the offending links using the Disavow Tool and submit a reconsideration request.
Thin content with little or no added value: Pages exist primarily for ranking, not to serve users. Fix by either significantly improving or removing the affected pages.
Pure spam: The site engages in clear spam practices. This requires a significant site cleanup and a formal reconsideration request.
Hacked content: Your site has been compromised. Google penalises compromised sites to protect its users.

What to Do If You Have a Manual Action

Most small businesses have no manual actions. Check this report monthly anyway - a penalty you are unaware of is the worst kind. If you find one, address the specific issue cited, fix every affected page, and submit a reconsideration request through GSC explaining what you did to resolve it. Resolution typically takes several weeks.

Report 6: Links Report

Location: Links

This report shows your site's backlink profile as seen by Google. It includes:

Top linked pages: Which pages on your site have the most external links pointing to them.
Top linking sites: Which external domains link to your site most often.
Top linking text: The most common anchor text used in links to your site.

What to Look For

Top linked pages tells you which content has earned the most natural links. This is useful for understanding what your audience finds valuable and what to create more of.

Top linking sites is your external link audit. Are the linking sites reputable and relevant? Or do you see unfamiliar, low-quality sites linking to you? A sudden spike of links from unrelated or foreign-language sites could indicate a negative SEO attack or the tail end of a historical link building campaign that needs to be addressed.

Top linking text should be varied. Natural link profiles include a mix of your brand name, generic terms ("click here", "this post"), and keyword-containing anchors. If almost all your anchor text is the exact same keyword phrase, this can look manipulative to Google.

Monthly Action

Check for new linking domains. Are you earning links from the content you have been publishing? Cross-reference with any outreach or digital PR you have done. For a detailed link building strategy, read our guide on Link Building 2026.

Monthly GSC Review Checklist

Use this checklist every month to keep your site's search health in good shape:

[ ] Performance report: Compare last 28 days to previous period. Note any significant keyword gains or drops.
[ ] Performance - Pages: Identify any pages that lost significant clicks or impressions.
[ ] Performance - CTR: Identify pages ranking in the top ten with CTR below 3%. Update title tags or meta descriptions.
[ ] URL Inspection: Request indexing for any new content published this month.
[ ] Coverage - Indexing: Check for any new "not indexed" errors. Investigate and fix.
[ ] Core Web Vitals: Check if any pages have moved to "Poor". Schedule fixes.
[ ] Manual Actions: Confirm no manual actions are present.
[ ] Links: Note new linking domains. Check for suspicious linking patterns.

This review takes 30 to 45 minutes once you are familiar with the interface. It is the most valuable 30 minutes you can spend on SEO each month.

Connecting GSC to the Rest of Your SEO Work

GSC data should inform your content strategy, technical fixes, and link building priorities. Low-impressions keywords tell you which topics Google has not yet recognised you as authoritative on. High-impression, low-click keywords tell you where your titles are underperforming.

For the full picture on how GSC data connects to your SEO strategy, see our posts on SEO for Small Business and How Long Does SEO Take.

If you want help interpreting your GSC data or would like an expert audit, our SEO Specialist can walk through your reports and build an action plan. Get a free quote to get started.

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Google Search Console: The 6 Reports Every Business Owner Should Check Monthly