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SEO & Content Strategy · AI search and measuring SEO · lesson 16 of 17 · 12 min

Measuring SEO with Google Search Console

Why Search Console is essential

Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool that shows how Google sees your site: which queries you appear for, how often people click, which pages are indexed and what technical problems exist. Bing Webmaster Tools offers similar data for Bing (which also powers some other search experiences). Set both up for every site you manage.

Setting up

  • Add a Domain property (verified via DNS) to cover all subdomains and protocols, or a URL-prefix property if you cannot edit DNS.
  • Submit your XML sitemap.
  • Give team members appropriate access (not everyone needs owner permissions).
  • Link GSC with Google Analytics 4 if you want to view some Search Console data alongside analytics.

The Performance report

Four core metrics:

| Metric | Meaning | |---|---| | Clicks | Times users clicked through to your site from Google Search | | Impressions | Times a link to your site appeared in results a user saw (definitions vary slightly by feature) | | CTR | Clicks ÷ Impressions | | Average position | Average topmost position of your site in results, across impressions |

Filter by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date. Compare date ranges to spot trends (compare like-for-like periods, for example this month versus the same month last year, to account for seasonality).

Practical analyses

1. Quick wins: high impressions, low CTR Find queries or pages with many impressions and a lower CTR than similar pages. Improve titles and meta descriptions to better match intent, or improve the content so it earns richer snippets.

2. Striking distance: positions roughly 8–20 Pages ranking on the edge of page one can often move up with content improvements, better internal links and fresh updates.

3. Content decay Compare the last three months with the previous three (or year-on-year). Pages losing clicks may need updating or may face new competition or AI features.

4. Query-page mismatches If an informational blog post ranks for a transactional query, consider whether a better-matched page should exist or be linked prominently.

5. Cannibalisation Filter by a query and check the Pages tab. If several of your pages swap in and out, consider consolidating.

Indexing and experience reports

  • Page indexing report: shows indexed and not-indexed pages with reasons (for example "Crawled – currently not indexed", "Duplicate without user-selected canonical", "Excluded by noindex tag"). Not every non-indexed URL is a problem; focus on pages you want indexed.
  • URL Inspection: check a specific URL's index status, the canonical Google selected, and test the live URL; request indexing after important updates.
  • Core Web Vitals report: groups of URLs with poor, needs-improvement or good performance based on real-user data.
  • Manual actions and security issues: check regularly; hopefully always empty.
  • Links report: top linking sites and internal link counts.

Connecting SEO to business results

Search Console shows visibility and clicks, not revenue. Combine it with analytics and CRM data:

  • In GA4, analyse organic search sessions, engagement and conversions by landing page.
  • Tag conversion events (leads, purchases, bookings) and attribute them to organic landing pages.
  • Report SEO as a funnel: impressions → clicks → engaged sessions → conversions → revenue.

A monthly SEO reporting template

  1. Summary: clicks, impressions, CTR and conversions vs previous period and last year.
  2. Top gaining and losing pages and queries with reasons.
  3. Technical health: indexing changes, Core Web Vitals, errors fixed.
  4. Content shipped and early performance.
  5. Next month's priorities (quick wins, striking-distance updates, new cluster pages).

Worked example (illustrative)

A Lahore travel agency finds its "Hunza travel guide" page has high impressions but a low CTR, sitting around position 6. The title was "Guide | Travel Co". The team rewrites it as "Hunza Travel Guide 2026: Best Time, Routes & Costs" (reflecting content the page genuinely contains), adds an updated cost table and links from its "Northern Pakistan tours" page. Over the following weeks, CTR rises and enquiries from the page increase.

What's new in Search Console (2025–2026)

  • Generative AI performance report — impressions for AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI features in Discover, broken down by page, country, device and date (rolled out to all sites by the end of August 2026; additional metrics are planned). AI feature clicks and impressions also remain inside normal Web search totals.
  • Search generative AI control — a setting that lets a site opt out of AI features in Search and Discover without affecting regular results. It's a business decision with trade-offs; read the current help page first.
  • AI-powered configuration — Search Console added a natural-language way to set up Performance report filters and comparisons (announced December 2025); always double-check the filters it applies before drawing conclusions.

Hands-on: a regex toolkit for the Performance report

Search Console's Query and Page filters accept Custom (regex) using RE2 syntax:

Brand vs non-brand:     yourbrand|your brand|yb app          (then use "Doesn't match regex" for non-brand)
Questions:              ^(how|what|why|when|where|which|who|can|does|is|are)\b
Local intent:           near me|nearby|dubai|sharjah|lahore|karachi|riyadh|jeddah
Commercial:             best|top|vs|review|price|cost|cheap
Section of the site:    /blog/|/guides/          (on the Page filter)

Compare like-for-like periods (for example "last 3 months" vs "same period last year"), and export the result to Sheets for the analyses in this lesson. The next lesson automates this with the Search Console API.

Common mistakes

  • Judging SEO on average position alone.
  • Comparing periods without considering seasonality.
  • Panicking about every non-indexed URL.
  • Reporting clicks without connecting them to conversions.

Video lecture: Measuring SEO with Google Search Console

Lecture coming soon · 14 chapters · about 8 minutes. Read the full transcript below.

  1. Measuring SEO with Search Console
  2. Why it matters
  3. Setup
  4. Performance report
  5. Five analyses
  6. Regex filters
  7. What's new
  8. Example 1 (simple, illustrative)
  9. Example 2 (illustrative)
  10. Beyond Performance
  11. Segment before you panic
  12. Watch me do it: a monthly report
  13. Monthly report
  14. Recap

Lecture transcript

Measuring SEO with Search Console

If you could use only one free SEO tool, it should be Google Search Console. It's Google telling you directly which queries you appear for, how often people click, which pages are indexed, and what's broken. In this lecture you'll learn to set it up properly, read the Performance report, run five practical analyses with regex filters, use the indexing and AI reports, and connect everything to business results with a monthly template.

Why it matters

Why does this matter? Because opinions about SEO are cheap, and Search Console gives you Google's own data. It shows what's working, what's slipping and what's broken, often before revenue moves. It also helps you prioritise. Instead of guessing which page to improve, you can see which pages already have impressions and are close to page one. Set up Bing Webmaster Tools too, which offers similar data for Bing.

Setup

Setup first. Add a Domain property, verified via DNS, to cover all subdomains and protocols, or a URL prefix property if you can't edit DNS. Submit your XML sitemap. Give team members appropriate access, because not everyone needs owner permission. And link Search Console with GA4 if you want some data side by side.

Performance report

Now the Performance report. Four metrics. Clicks: people who clicked through. Impressions: times your link appeared in results someone saw. CTR: clicks divided by impressions. And average position: the average topmost position across impressions. Filter by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date. And here's the key idea: always compare like for like periods, like this month versus the same month last year, to account for seasonality.

Five analyses

Five practical analyses. One: quick wins, queries with many impressions and a low CTR, where better titles or snippets can help. Two: striking distance, pages around positions eight to twenty that can move up with content improvements and internal links. Three: content decay, comparing periods to find pages losing clicks. Four: query page mismatches, where an informational post ranks for a transactional query. And five: cannibalisation, where several of your pages swap for one query.

Regex filters

Here's a power tool: regex filters. Search Console's query and page filters accept custom regular expressions. Filter brand queries with your brand name and variations, then use doesn't match regex for non brand. Filter questions with a pattern that starts with how, what, why and similar words. Filter local intent with near me and city names. Filter commercial words like best, versus, review and price. Or filter sections of your site on the page filter. The patterns are in the lesson, ready to paste.

What's new

Now the newer reports. The Generative AI performance report, rolled out to all sites by the end of August twenty twenty-six, shows impressions for AI Overviews, AI Mode and AI features in Discover by page, country, device and date. There's also a Search generative AI control, which lets a site opt out of AI features without affecting regular results. That's a business decision with trade offs. And an AI powered configuration feature lets you set up filters in natural language. Always double check the filters it applies.

Example 1 (simple, illustrative)

Worked example one, simple. A Lahore travel agency finds its Hunza travel guide has high impressions but low CTR, around position six. The title was just Guide, Travel Co. They rewrite it as Hunza Travel Guide twenty twenty-six: best time, routes and costs, which the page genuinely covers, add an updated cost table, and link from their northern Pakistan tours page. Over the following weeks, CTR rises and enquiries from the page increase.

Example 2 (illustrative)

Worked example two, realistic and illustrative. A Riyadh e-commerce site's non brand clicks look flat overall. Using the regex filters, the SEO lead splits the data. Question queries are up, commercial best and price queries are down, and one category's pages dropped after a template change. The indexing report confirms many of those pages are now duplicate without user selected canonical. The fix is technical, not content. Without segmenting, the team would have rewritten articles that were actually doing fine.

Beyond Performance

Don't forget the other reports. The page indexing report shows indexed and not indexed pages with reasons. Focus on pages you want indexed. URL Inspection checks a specific URL's index status and the canonical Google selected. Core Web Vitals shows real user experience groups. Manual actions and security issues should always be empty. Then connect SEO to business results with GA4: organic sessions, engagement and conversions by landing page, reported as a funnel from impressions to revenue.

Segment before you panic

Let's pause and read a pattern. Your blog's non brand clicks fell fifteen percent year on year. Before panicking, segment. Use the regex for question queries: clicks are up. Commercial queries: down. Now filter the page to one category: most of the drop is there. Then check the page indexing report for that category, and you find a canonical problem introduced in a recent template change. That's a technical fix, not a content crisis. Segmentation turns a scary total into a specific, fixable cause.

Watch me do it: a monthly report

Watch me do it. I'll produce a monthly SEO report for a Riyadh e-commerce site in Search Console. First, Performance, search results, date range last three months compared with the same period last year. Totals: non brand clicks down slightly. Next, I segment. Query filter, custom regex, with the brand name, then doesn't match regex, so I'm looking at non brand only. Then a second filter using the question regex: clicks up. Then commercial terms like best, price and review: down. Now I switch to the Pages tab and filter by section. The drop concentrates in one category, the phones category. Then I open the Pages indexing report for that section. Many URLs show duplicate without user selected canonical, starting on the date of a template change. That's a technical cause, not content. I use URL Inspection on one phone page, and Google has picked a filter URL as canonical. Then I check the Generative AI performance report for AI feature impressions on the guides section, which are rising. Finally, I write the report: summary, gainers and losers with reasons, the canonical issue as the top technical priority, content shipped, AI visibility trend, and next month's priorities. Segmenting turned a vague decline into one specific fix.

Monthly report

A monthly report template. A summary of clicks, impressions, CTR and conversions versus last period and last year. Top gaining and losing pages and queries, with reasons. Technical health. Content shipped and early performance. AI visibility trends. And next month's priorities. Common mistakes: judging SEO on average position alone, comparing periods without seasonality, panicking about every non indexed URL, and reporting clicks without conversions.

Recap

Recap. Set up Search Console with a domain property, sitemaps and the right access. Use clicks, impressions, CTR and position with like for like comparisons. Run the five analyses with regex filters, use the indexing, inspection and new AI reports, and connect SEO to conversions. Try this now. Filter your non brand queries with regex, find five with high impressions and low CTR, and five pages between positions eight and twenty, and write one specific improvement for each.

Key takeaways

  • Set up Search Console (and Bing Webmaster Tools) with a domain property, sitemaps and appropriate access.
  • Use clicks, impressions, CTR and average position with filters and like-for-like date comparisons.
  • Find quick wins (high impressions, low CTR), striking-distance pages, decay and cannibalisation.
  • Use indexing, URL Inspection and Core Web Vitals reports, and connect SEO data to conversions in analytics.

Try it

In Search Console, find five queries with high impressions and low CTR and five pages ranking roughly between positions 8 and 20. Write a specific improvement for each.