I use Google Search Console to understand how my website is performing on search engine platforms. Google Search Console shares data and insights on how my website is doing across different parameters.
Pros
Google Search Console insights is a great feature which provides an overview of my top content, how my new content is performing, etc.
It gives detailed information around backlinks - who is linking to us, how many backlinks do we have, how is the internal linking within the website, etc.
I like the graph feature that shows how the website is performing overall in one month, three months etc. Seeing the graph can help us understand whether it is trending upward or downward and we can shift strategies accordingly.
Cons
I would love to be able to do Keyword Research within Search Console so that I can plan my content accordingly.
It would be great if we are able to get some customer information on what users are already looking for based on our industry. For example we are a natural skincare brand, it would be really helpful if Search Console told us what users are searching for that could be related to skincare industry.
N/A
Likelihood to Recommend
There are lots of tools and platforms that help us rank well on search engines. While that is helpful, we do need to know how those efforts paid off. This is where Google Search Console comes in. It is vital for every business or website trying to rank well on search engines to have Google Search Console so that they can track their performance and make necessary adjustments.
The company wanted to rank highly on google searches for fashion blogs which prompted us to sort after a powerful SEO. We also needed to pull more traffic to our websites, It was then than we engaged Google search console to improve our landing pages ranking. We are now utilizing it to generate a breakdown of our blogs and websites performance
Pros
Reports detail accurately of the current performance
It is capable of sampling out SEO issues to improve your ranking.
It constantly tracks search results
Cons
I find it hard to recrawl URLs using the inspection tool.
Reports highlight so much data making it hard to follow up during analysis.
Likelihood to Recommend
First of all, it is very friendly to new users and you can easily scale up your marketing. Google search console is a smart way to monitor the interaction of your websites with the search engine, at the same time feeding you with valuable SEO insights. As you make adjustments to your websites or implement new strategies, google search console highlights how the peaks of your traffic fairs on.
VU
Verified User
Manager in Marketing (Apparel & Fashion company, 1001-5000 employees)
We use Google Search Console to understand what are our users searching for before visiting or registering with the website. It also helps us understand if we are showing up for terms where we do not offer a satisfactory user experience.
Pros
Link review for SEO.
Search keywords and performance.
Page experience monitoring.
Cons
No detection dates on the incoming links.
Mobile usability suggestions are not always helpful.
Security issues are not listed - Just "no issues detected."
Likelihood to Recommend
Google Search console is great for analysing the incoming links and search traffic. You can easily find out if your website offers good relevance to the search users. It is not very well suited for app user behaviour or cases where the user is redirected to the app.
VU
Verified User
General Manager in Marketing (Apparel & Fashion company, 1001-5000 employees)
I've used Google Search Console for all companies I worked for. It's a great FREE tool for tracking keyword positions, impressions, clicks and CTR and other metrics for your websites. The good part is that the ranking data is coming directly from Google (while ALL other tools pull it through Google's API).
Pros
Rankings tracking for pages and keywords on Google.
Impressions, clicks and CTR tracking for separate keywords and pages on Google.
Comparing rankings, impressions, clicks, and CTR for different time periods.
It shows information about recent Google and GSC updates on the graph.
Cons
They used to have a limitation on how far back you can go with data (the limitation was 90 days), meaning you couldn't see data from 100 days ago. However, the new version (I think it's in Beta now) doesn't have this limitation anymore.
Also, it's not possible to group keywords and pages and track performance for groups. Tools like Conductor Searchlight have this function.
Likelihood to Recommend
Great starting tool for any small to mid-sized business. It provides all internal SEO information that you need, including on-site improvement suggestions and backlink information (on top of the most popular functions like positions and click tracking).
VU
Verified User
Strategist in Marketing (Printing company, 51-200 employees)
We use it to support our SEO efforts. Initially it was a main tool to work with sitemaps and update newly added pages. The latter is still a good option to manually submit new pages.
Mainly it's a useful addition to Google Analytics, which itself offers more value than Search Console.
Pros
Submit pages
Measure inbound links
Cons
Measuring indexed pages
Should be included in Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
It's a must have if you want to do well in SEO. Manually submitted pages and linked pages is a plus, submitting sitemaps as well. Overall though it offers too little to be a standalone product. Google should embed this into Analytics.
It often seems to show different information compared to Analytics and Google itself.
