The essentials · 30-second read
Google Search Console is free. It shows the queries, clicks and positions of your pages on Google, their indexing status and technical errors. Set it up on day one.
- Free for any site owner: Google calls it a free service and there is no paid plan.
- It is the only source of Google's own data on your clicks, impressions, CTR and average position, query by query and page by page.
- The interface exports 1,000 rows per table; the API goes further, which is why we connect it to our tools.
- Our verdict: the first SEO tool to install. Pair it with Ahrefs or Semrush for competitors and backlinks.
Summarize this page with AI
Google Search Console is the SEO tool we open every day, and it costs nothing. It is the only place where Google tells you, with its own data, which queries show your pages, how often people click and which pages it refuses to index. This guide explains what Search Console is, how to use it well, what the free tool cannot do and which paid tools complete it.
01What is Google Search Console?
Google Search Console is a free service from Google for anyone who runs a website. It reports how your pages perform in Google Search (queries, impressions, clicks, click-through rate and average position) and how Google crawls and indexes them. It also alerts you by email when Google detects a problem on your site.
Google writes that Search Console is useful for business owners, SEO specialists and marketers, site administrators and web developers. In practice, it is the starting point of any SEO work: before buying a paid tool, you need to know what Google already sees.
02How we use Google Search Console at BeBranded
Search Console is part of our daily SEO routine on bebranded.xyz, together with Ahrefs. We do not only open the interface: Search Console is connected to our tools, so we can pull the query data of any page in seconds.
- Page by page queries. For each important page, we list the queries that bring impressions, sorted by volume. This is how we wrote this guide: the queries Google already associates with a page tell us what its title and FAQ should answer.
- Pages close to page one. Queries with many impressions but an average position between 8 and 20 are the quickest wins. A better title, a clearer section or an internal link often moves them up.
- Indexing after a change. Our site moved from Webflow to Next.js and Payload CMS in November 2026. After any redesign or migration, the indexing report and URL Inspection are where you check that Google follows the new pages. We explain the method in our guide to an SEO redesign without traffic loss.
For clients, setting up and reading Search Console is the first step of our technical SEO audit and site audit.
03Key features
- Performance report: clicks, impressions, CTR and average position, filterable by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date.
- URL Inspection: crawl, index and serving information for a given URL, straight from the Google index, with a request to index it.
- Indexing reports: which pages are indexed, which are not, and the reason (redirect, noindex, duplicate, 404 and so on).
- Sitemaps: submit your XML sitemaps and see when Google last read them.
- Core Web Vitals: real user speed and stability data, on mobile and desktop.
- Rich results and alerts: structured data errors, security issues and email alerts when a new problem appears.
- Search Analytics API: the same data, exportable beyond the interface limits.
04Google Search Console pricing in 2026
Checked on search.google.com/search-console and Google's Search Console Help on 14 November 2026. There is no pricing page, because there is nothing to buy.
| What you get | Free? | |
|---|---|---|
| Performance report | Yes | Limits to know Interface exports stop at 1,000 rows per table |
| Search Analytics API | Yes | Limits to know Up to 50,000 rows per day per site and search type; 25,000 rows per request |
| URL Inspection, indexing, sitemaps | Yes | Limits to know Index requests are not a guarantee that Google will index |
| Core Web Vitals, alerts, rich results | Yes | Limits to know Needs enough real traffic to show field data |
| Anonymized queries | Hidden | Limits to know Rare queries are left out of tables but counted in totals |
Is Google Search Console free? Yes, completely. Google calls it a free service and there is no paid tier. The real limits are the export cap of the interface and hidden rare queries: for large sites, connect the API to a spreadsheet, a data warehouse or a tool like Looker Studio.
05Pros and cons
Advantages
- Free, official and impossible to replace: it is Google's own data, not an estimate.
- Query and page data that no third-party tool can match for your own site.
- Indexing and URL Inspection explain why a page does not appear.
- A Domain property covers every subdomain and protocol at once.
- An API that lets you automate reporting and cross the data with your analytics.
Drawbacks
- Only your own site: no competitor data, no keyword volumes, no backlink analysis worth the name.
- The interface caps exports at 1,000 rows, and rare queries are hidden.
- Data arrives with a delay of a few days and the most recent days can still change.
- Reports are dense and the vocabulary of indexing statuses takes time to learn.
06Our verdict
Who it's for
- Every site owner, from a freelancer's portfolio to an e-commerce store.
- Marketing teams that want to know which content brings Google traffic.
- Developers who need to check indexing, redirects, sitemaps and structured data.
- Anyone preparing or following a redesign or a migration.
Who it's not for
- Teams that want competitor research or keyword ideas beyond their own data: use a paid SEO suite.
- People looking for on-site behaviour (sessions, conversions): that is the job of an analytics tool.
- Those who want AI search visibility tracking (ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity): Search Console does not cover it.
07Google Search Console alternatives
| Tool | Best for | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Your own Google data, indexing | Free plan Fully free | Paid from No paid plan |
| Ahrefs | Backlinks, competitors, keyword research | Free plan Limited free tools | Paid from Paid subscription |
| Semrush | All-in-one SEO and marketing suite | Free plan Limited free account | Paid from Paid subscription |
| Screaming Frog | Crawling your site like a search engine | Free plan Limited free version | Paid from Yearly licence |
| Bing Webmaster Tools | The same job for Bing | Free plan Free | Paid from No paid plan |
These are not really alternatives but complements. Our rule: install Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools on day one, add Screaming Frog for technical audits, and choose Ahrefs or Semrush when you need to understand competitors. For AI visibility, see our GEO and AI visibility offer.
08How to use Google Search Console in five steps
- Create a Domain property and verify it with a DNS record at your domain provider: it covers www, other subdomains, http and https.
- Submit your XML sitemap in the Sitemaps report.
- Open the Performance report each week, switch on CTR and position, then sort queries by impressions.
- Filter by page to see the queries of one URL and adjust its title, meta description and content to them.
- Use URL Inspection after each publication or fix, and read the indexing report once a month.
If you want this routine set up and followed for you, it is part of our SEO and GEO and on-page SEO work.
