Search Console Tools Explained

"Search console tools" is not one button. It is a whole cockpit of free reports that Google gives every site owner, and each one answers a different question about how your pages are found, crawled, and ranked. This guide walks the reports in Google Search Console one by one, shows you how to read what each one reports, and gives you a concrete fix for the problems they surface.

What "search console tools" actually means

Google Search Console is a free service that reports how Google sees your website. It is not a scanner you point at any URL to grade it out of 100. It only works for sites you have verified ownership of, and in exchange it shows you real data straight from Google's index: which pages are indexed, which queries you appear for, and which technical problems are blocking you. To be clear, there is no proprietary 404Pulse scanner behind this page. The tools described here are Google's own, and they are free.

Once you verify a site (by DNS record, an HTML file, or a Google Analytics connection) the left sidebar becomes a set of distinct tools. People search for "search console tools" expecting a single checker, but the value is in knowing which report answers which question. Below is the tour, in the order most owners should use them. If you want the wider context first, our complete guide to Search Console covers setup and verification end to end.

URL Inspection: the "why is this one page not showing" tool

URL Inspection is the tool you reach for when a specific page is missing from Google. Paste any URL from your verified property into the top search bar and Search Console tells you whether it is indexed, when it was last crawled, which canonical Google chose, and whether it hit any errors. If the page is not indexed, the report explains why: "Discovered but not currently indexed", "Crawled but not indexed", "Excluded by noindex tag", or "Blocked by robots.txt" are the common verdicts.

How to fix what it finds:

• Blocked by robots.txt: remove the disallow rule that covers the URL, then retest.
• Excluded by noindex: delete the noindex meta tag or HTTP header if the page should rank.
• Crawled but not indexed: usually a quality or duplication signal. Strengthen the content, add internal links to it, and make sure it is not a near-duplicate of another page.

After a fix, click "Request indexing" so Google recrawls sooner rather than waiting for its normal schedule.

The Performance report: find queries you almost rank for

The Performance report is the closest thing Search Console has to a keyword tool, and it is more honest than most because the data is your real impressions and clicks. It shows four metrics: total clicks, total impressions, average click-through rate, and average position. The gold is in the Queries tab, filtered to positions 5 to 15. Those are searches where you already appear on page one or two but are not winning the click.

How to act on it: export the query list, group the ones that share intent, and improve the single page that ranks for them. Add the missing subtopics, tighten the title tag to match the query, and add an internal link from a stronger page. A page sitting at position 8 that you nudge to position 4 can double its traffic without a single new backlink.

The Pages report: fix indexing at scale

Where URL Inspection handles one page, the Pages report (formerly Index Coverage) handles the whole site. It splits your URLs into "Indexed" and "Not indexed", then groups the not-indexed pages by reason. You will see buckets like "Duplicate without user-selected canonical", "Soft 404", "Not found (404)", "Page with redirect", and "Excluded by noindex tag".

Work the buckets from largest to smallest. A big "Soft 404" bucket means Google thinks pages that return a 200 status are actually empty or thin, so give them real content or return a proper status. A big "Not found (404)" bucket means real broken URLs are being crawled, which is exactly the problem our guide on 404 Not Found errors walks through fixing. A "Duplicate" bucket usually means your canonical tags disagree with Google's choice, so align them.

Sitemaps: tell Google what exists

The Sitemaps tool lets you submit an XML sitemap and then reports how many of its URLs were discovered. A sitemap is a file that lists your important pages so search engines can crawl them more efficiently, which matters most for larger sites or new sites with few external links. Google's own documentation notes that sites with more than roughly 500 pages, or new sites with little inbound linking, benefit most from submitting one.

How to fix what it finds: if the Sitemaps tool reports "Couldn't fetch", the URL is wrong or the server blocked Googlebot, so open the sitemap URL in a browser to confirm it loads. If submitted URLs far exceed indexed URLs, that is not a sitemap bug, it is an indexing or quality signal to chase in the Pages report.

Core Web Vitals and the experience tools

The Core Web Vitals report groups your URLs into "Good", "Needs improvement", and "Poor" based on field data from real Chrome users. It measures three metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (good is 2.5 seconds or less), Interaction to Next Paint (good is 200 milliseconds or less), and Cumulative Layout Shift (good is 0.1 or less), each assessed at the 75th percentile of loads. Because the report groups similar URLs, one fix to a shared template usually clears a whole cluster at once.

How to fix what it finds: click into a "Poor" group to see example URLs, then diagnose them in PageSpeed Insights, which points to the specific images, scripts, or layout shifts to address. Our Core Web Vitals technical guide covers the concrete engineering fixes for each metric.

The Links report: see who points at you

The Links report is Search Console's backlink tool. It splits into external links and internal links, and surfaces your top linked pages, your top linking sites, and your most common anchor text. It is a sample rather than a complete list (tables cap at 1,000 rows and data is grouped by root domain), so treat it as a directional view, not a full backlink audit. To go deeper on measuring inbound links, see our guide on how to check incoming links.

How to act on it: the internal links table is underused. If an important page has very few internal links, add links to it from your strongest pages so authority and crawl priority flow toward it.

How the tools fit together with the rest of your stack

Search Console tells you how Google sees a site you own. It cannot tell you how a competitor's site performs, and it does not include Bing. Pair it with Bing Webmaster Tools for the same reports on Microsoft's index, and with a crawler such as the free tier of Screaming Frog for a full technical inventory. If you are choosing a wider toolkit, our overview of search engine optimisation tools and the companion piece on the webmaster tools console map out which free tool fills which slot.

Frequently asked questions

Are Google Search Console tools free?

Yes. Every report in Google Search Console is free for any site you can verify ownership of. There is no paid tier and no proprietary 404Pulse scanner involved. You only need a Google account and a verified property.

Which Search Console tool should I check first?

Start with the Pages report to see how many URLs are indexed and why the rest are not, then use URL Inspection to debug specific pages. After that, the Performance report shows the queries where a small ranking gain would earn the most traffic.

Can Search Console check any website, like a competitor's?

No. Search Console only reports on sites you have verified ownership of. To research a site you do not own, you need a third party tool such as Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz, many of which offer limited free lookups.

What is the difference between URL Inspection and the Pages report?

URL Inspection diagnoses one page at a time and lets you request indexing for it. The Pages report summarises indexing status across your whole site and groups not-indexed URLs by reason, so you fix problems in batches.

Does Search Console show all my backlinks?

No. The Links report shows a sample of external and internal links, with tables capped at 1,000 rows and data grouped by root domain. Use it for direction, and pair it with a dedicated backlink tool for a fuller picture.