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Google Search Console

Score9.1 out of 10

247 Reviews and Ratings

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What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a search engine optimization software solution offered by Google.

Categories & Use Cases

Key Features

Learn about the best (and worst!) features Google Search Console has to offer, as determined by TrustRadius' reviewers.
Based on 247 ratings of Google Search Console's features
View all features

Top Performing Features

  • Integration with web analytics tools

    The tool integrates with web analytics tools such as Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics (SiteCatalyst).

    Category average: 8.7

  • Social SEO

    The tool tracks social mentions and backlinks and their impact on SEO.

    Category average: 7.2

  • Multi-domain support

    For SEO agencies, the tool allows users to track multiple domains in one instance.

    Category average: 8.6

Areas for Improvement

  • Page grader

    The tool scores each page of your website for SEO.

    Category average: 7.9

  • Competitive analysis

    The tool analyzes your website’s position in comparison to competitive websites in areas such as backlinks, SERP position, etc.

    Category average: 8

  • Task management

    Users can track and manage the tasks associated with SEO.

    Category average: 6.8

Reviews

What users are saying about Google Search Console.
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Great as a source of truth on how you are performing within Google SERPs.

Incentivized
Stewart DonaldsonView profile
Marketing Director in Marketing at Appointedd (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Search Console to monitor organic search performance and assess month-over-month and year-over-year growth. We also use it as our technical SEO health tool, alongside Ahrefs, to monitor the current state of our technical SEO and identify any pressing issues we need to address. Finally, we use search queries and page-level data to identify which terms are driving traffic and any gaps or opportunities we can capitalise on.

Pros

  • Understanding your SEO performance and really drilling down into what keywords and pages are driving that performance.
  • Understanding the internal linking and technical stability of your website.
  • Understanding how your mobile site is performing and what needs to be fixed to give visitors the best user experience when accessing your website via a mobile device.

Cons

  • Being able to easily split out brand and non-brand searches. This is a very manual process.
  • Providing all search data in GSC rather than having to access this via the API.

Return on Investment

  • Helped us understand why performance has dropped, so we can rectify the issue early and minimise the impact on lead generation.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Ahrefs and Semrush

Other Software Used

Ahrefs, Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Free reliable and evergreen tool for Search Insights.

Incentivized
Verified User
Employee in Marketing (11-50 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use GSC to get our content on the SERP. It helps us index, track, and troubleshoot indexing issues, in addition to providing site insights. Our scope of use is indexing, tracking, analytics, and troubleshooting. GSC helps us fix the content problem with efficient tracking and feedback on content indexing rejections. Because of GSC, we have managed to rank at the top of the SERP, mostly on the first page. It also helps us understand which content is working, which keywords are ranking, etc.

Pros

  • Search insights.
  • Tracking traffic from different sources.
  • Reporting

Cons

  • It is very complicated to use, a better interface might be a good addition.
  • GSC and GA have some overlap, maybe merge them.

Return on Investment

  • It's free to use, so any impact is highly positive.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Google Analytics, Semrush, Moz Pro and Ahrefs

Other Software Used

Instantly, Smartlead.ai, Apollo.io, Semrush, Ahrefs

Must-Have SEO Tool

Incentivized
Verified User
Manager in Marketing (10,001+ employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Google Search Console (GSC) to check which keywords are driving traffic to our website, check our average rankings, make sure pages that we want to be indexed are being indexed, and making sure pages that we don't want to be indexed are not, fixing errors, checking to make sure our schema markup is working, and monitoring core web vitals. These tools help us determine what's working for SEO, what's not working, and address any issues that pop up.

Pros

  • Gives you a sample of keywords associated with actual clicks to your website
  • Is user-friendly and easy to create reporting
  • Contains explanations around definitions making it easier for new users to understand

Cons

  • Full access to keyword click data is not available
  • While you can see the source URL for where Google found a particular URL, it doesn't tell you where on the page it's finding it
  • Lookback window should be longer for Performance reporting

Return on Investment

  • GSC gives us invaluable insights into our SEO which in turn generates us revenue, we don't have hard numbers but it is key to our SEO strategy

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Semrush, BrightEdge, Conductor and Google Analytics

Other Software Used

Semrush, Adobe Analytics, Botify

Must have tool for SEO

Incentivized
Namrata AgarwalView profile
Managing Director in Corporate at Vishisht Lifestyle (1-10 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

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

Return on Investment

  • Google Search Console sends out an email beginning of every month with all the details of how the site performed the month before. This is super helpful because we don`t need to remind ourselves to fix things on website. This monthly email is a great reminder and also making tweaks once every month is a great practice for long term SEO success.
  • Ever since we started using Google Search Console, we saw great improvements not just on our website but overall in our business. For example, we were naturally ranking well for one of our products and were also getting orders through Organic search. We got to know about this thanks to Google Search Console. This helped us figure out what are we doing well in that particular product page which we can then sort of replicate for other product pages and try to win there as well.
  • Just with the information that Google Search Console shares with us in terms of which pages are not ranking well or the ones that are trending downwards, we are able to fix those web pages and are able to generate sales without spending any money because Google Search Console is free to use.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Ubersuggest, Semrush and Moz Link Explorer

Other Software Used

Canva, Google Keep, ChatGPT

Good data for insights, but no specific direction for improvement

Incentivized
Bailey Witt, MBAView profile
Senior Digital Marketing Strategist in Marketing at Trellis (51-200 employees employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Google Search Console is used by our agency to asses organic search performance for our clients and identify issues with indexing or core web vitals.

Our agency primarily manages paid media - Google & Meta Ads - but using Google Search Console we can understand how people organically find our clients' websites based on the keywords they search and what pages they land on most. It also helps us get a gauge for how many people search for their brand name.

Pros

  • Query and page metrics are very easy to navigate and visualize, and compare periods.
  • Uploading a sitemap is very easy.
  • Viewing indexed pages vs non-indexed pages, and the reasons for not being indexed, is very helpful.

Cons

  • Only being able to go back 16 months is a big letdown. We know this data is captured and available, so it's a shame that this data can't be shown to us.
  • There is no way to have multiple filters in the Performance report, which makes it difficult to see performance trends for specific use cases, such as searching for performance for brand terms that contain one phrase but not another.
  • While the indexing reports are helpful for identifying where potential issues are, there is no system in place to help prioritize or grade these issues, or even tips for how to fix certain issues. In other words, you're kinda left to fend for yourself and hope you know what to do.

Return on Investment

  • For our agency, it directly helps us prove the value of our SEO help to clients with charts showing growth in traffic.
  • Google Search Console provides simple reports for easy screenshots that make our SEO auditing process simpler, saving time and resources.

Usability