Search Console Leaves Beta

Out of beta

Google announced yesterday that the new Search Console is out of beta. The version many site owners first opened in January is now simply Search Console.

Two things arrived with the announcement: a Manual Actions report, and a live test in the URL Inspection tool that checks a page as it is now rather than as Google last saw it.

The old version has not gone. Reports that have not yet moved are still reached from a link in the new menu.

Nothing needs verifying again, and nothing about how the site appears in search changes because of it.

What is in the new version

• Performance, with sixteen months of searches, clicks and positions.
• Index Coverage, showing which pages are indexed and why others are not.
• URL Inspection, now with a test of the live page.
• Sitemaps, for submitting the list of pages and checking it was read.
• Mobile Usability, moved across in August, with a button to validate fixes.
• Links, showing which sites link to yours and to which pages.
• Manual Actions, which on almost every site should say no issues detected.

The fifth matters most this year. Since March, Google has been switching sites to mobile-first indexing, where the version it reads is the phone one, and this report lists the pages where that version has problems.

What still lives in the old version

Several tools have not moved yet. The robots.txt tester, the crawl statistics, the international targeting settings and the tool for temporarily removing a page from results are all still in the old version.

So is Fetch as Google, the long-standing way to ask for a single page to be crawled again.

Google says more will move over time. Until then, most small businesses will rarely need the old version, but it is worth knowing where it is.

What has not changed

The data is the same data. Verification, users and email alerts carry on as before.

Users and permissions can now be managed in the new version too, so removing a former supplier's access, or adding your web company, no longer means switching versions.

And Search Console still reports only on Google. It says nothing about the calls or bookings those searches produced, so your own records still matter alongside it.

A worked example

A community ski hill run by a non-profit society, with two lifts and a tube park, gets most of its website visits between November and March, mostly on phones.

Late this summer, preparing for the season, the volunteer who looks after the site set Performance to the full sixteen months. For the first time, the whole of last winter was in view.

The searches that brought people in December were about conditions, hours and the tube park, and the page they reached most often was the trail map.

Mobile Usability, newly moved across, listed that page with two problems: content wider than the screen and text too small to read. The map sat in a fixed-width table built for a desktop.

The hill's web company rebuilt the page with the run list as text beside a map that can be enlarged, and a validation request went in the same week.

The volunteer now runs the same short check on the first Monday of every month, and sends anything odd straight to the web company.

Ten minutes, once a month

Most owners open Search Console when something has gone wrong, which is the worst time to learn it.

A short look once a month works better. It catches problems while they are small, and it builds a sense of what normal looks like for your site, so that a change stands out.

Pick a fixed day and follow the same order each time. Start with Manual Actions: it takes seconds, and it should say no issues detected.

Performance against last year

Open Performance and compare the last twenty-eight days with the same period a year earlier.

Sixteen months of data means last September is now in view, so this month can be measured against a real year-ago month rather than against the summer.

Look at the queries, then the pages. Note any search with many impressions and few clicks, any service or town that has dropped away, and any search you did not expect.

Coverage and phones

In Index Coverage, read only what is new since last month: errors first, then any important page that has moved into the excluded list.

In Mobile Usability, look for new problems such as text too small to read, buttons too close together or content wider than the screen.

Both reports have a validate button. Once a problem is fixed, pressing it asks Google to recheck the affected pages, and the report tracks the result.

One page, tested live

Finish with the page you changed most recently: a new service page, a rewritten title, a fixed form.

Paste its address into URL Inspection. The report shows what Google has on file, and the new live test shows whether Google can load the page as it stands today.

If the two disagree, Google has not seen your change yet, which is normal for a page changed in the last week or two.

The counter-case

For a small site whose pages are all indexed and rarely change, a monthly check will mostly confirm that nothing has happened. Every second month, or each quarter, is reasonable there.

Search Console also shows symptoms rather than causes, and the fixes still need somebody who knows how the site is built.

But ten minutes is cheap, and the first month something does go wrong, a habit of looking is what turns a slow loss into a quick fix.

The ten minutes

1. Open Manual Actions and confirm no issues.
2. Compare the last month with a year earlier.
3. Note searches with many impressions and few clicks.
4. Read new Coverage errors and their reasons.
5. Check Mobile Usability for new problems.
6. Inspect one changed page with the live test.
7. Send your notes to whoever maintains the site.

Step seven is what makes the rest worth doing. A finding that stays in the owner's notebook changes nothing, while a short monthly email to your web company turns each one into a fix.

Reading a fall in Performance after a broad update is covered in the August core update and health sites.

Frequently asked questions

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