Google Search Console for business owners: the reports worth reading.

What Search Console tells you

Search Console shows what happens in Google Search before anyone reaches your site: the searches your pages appeared for, how often, in what position and how often people clicked. It also tells you when Google cannot read a page, finds a security problem or takes action against the site.

It sits next to two other free tools, and each answers a different question:

• Search Console: how your website appears in Google Search, and what Google found on it.
• Google Analytics, or whichever analytics your site uses: what visitors do once they arrive, whether they came from Google, an ad, a social post or a link.
• Your Business Profile's Performance page: how your profile does on Search and Maps, including calls and direction requests.

A local business needs all three, but only a few reports in each. This guide covers the Search Console ones.

Set it up in the business's name

Go to search.google.com/search-console, signed in with a Google account the business owns, and add a Domain property. It covers every version of your address, and you verify it by adding a TXT record at the company that manages your domain. Why your website is not showing up on Google walks through the setup and the sitemap.

Who holds it matters later. Search Console has owners, full users and restricted users. Owners can do everything, including adding and removing people. Full users can see all the data and use most of the tools. Restricted users can view most of the data, with few actions.

Keep at least one verified owner inside the business. Google says that if every verified owner is removed, the other users and delegated owners lose access after a grace period. Add your web designer or agency as a full user, so they can help without holding the keys.

Every website we build launches with Search Console in the client's own account and the sitemap submitted, as the websites page describes.

The Performance report in plain words

Open Performance, then Search results. The chart shows four numbers for the dates you choose:

• Clicks: how many times someone clicked through to your site from Google Search.
• Impressions: how many times your site appeared in results, whether or not anyone scrolled down to it.
• Average CTR: clicks divided by impressions.
• Average position: where your site appeared, on average. In the chart, Google counts the highest result from your site for each search.

Below the chart, the table splits the same numbers by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date. The report opens on the last three months, and Google keeps 16 months of data, so you can compare this autumn with last autumn.

The newest data is preliminary. It shows as a dotted line and can change over the next few hours. Dates run on Pacific Time, so a European business's day in Search Console does not start at its own midnight.

The search type at the top defaults to web results. Google now splits web searches into text-based and multimodal, the second covering searches made with images, such as Google Lens. A shop whose products people photograph and search for may see traffic there.

The searches that find you

Choose Queries in the table and sort by impressions. For a physiotherapy clinic in Bristol, the list might start with the clinic's name, then physio bristol, sports massage near me, physio for back pain and how long a sprained ankle takes to heal. Read it with these questions in mind:

• How much of it is your own name? If most clicks come from people typing your name, Google is mostly sending you people who already know you.
• Which services appear, and which are missing? A service you sell that never shows up points to a page problem.
• Which searches have plenty of impressions and a position just off the first page? Those pages are close, and improving them pays first.
• What are people searching for that you do not offer? Make the page clearer about what you do, so the wrong people stop clicking.

Google leaves some queries out of the table to protect searchers' privacy. They still count in the chart totals, so the rows will not add up to the total. That is normal.

Google also has a branded queries filter that separates searches containing your name from the rest. It works only for whole-site properties with enough searches, it sorts queries with an automated system that can get some wrong, and many small sites will not see it. A filter for queries containing your business name does the same job by hand.

The pages that earn the clicks

Switch the table to Pages to see which pages appear in results and which people click:

• A page with many impressions and few clicks is seen, and people choose another result. Rewrite its title and description so they say what the page offers, and where.
• A main service page with almost no impressions is barely seen. Check that Google has indexed it, then make the page answer what people ask about that service.
• A page that suddenly lost clicks may have changed, broken or lost a link from another site.

Click any page in the table, then switch back to Queries, and you see the searches for that page alone. It is the quickest way to learn what a page is really found for.

If an important page is missing from results altogether, the Page indexing report gives the reason.

What average position does and does not mean

Average position is the number owners worry about most and understand least. Google says the results for a query vary with time, location, device and search history, and for a local business, location matters most. An average of 7.4 for "physio bristol" means the site appeared around seventh on average, across everyone who saw it, from the clinic's own street to the far side of the city.

Some results share one position. Google counts all the links in an AI Overview as one position, and all the links in a knowledge panel as another. A click counts whenever someone leaves Google for your site, including from an AI Overview link.

So watch the trend for the searches you care about, month by month, rather than any single figure. The map results seen from a customer's street are a separate check, covered in why your business is not showing on Google Maps.

The generative AI reports

In June 2026 Google added generative AI performance reports to Search Console, and it says that by 31 August 2026 they had reached all websites. They show how often pages from your site appeared in AI Overviews and AI Mode in Search, and in the AI features in Google Discover.

• They count impressions only, not clicks.
• They show which pages appeared, and split the numbers by country, by device for Search, and by date, down to the hour.
• The same impressions are already included in the main Performance report, so they are not extra traffic.

For most local businesses this report is a curiosity rather than a priority. It tells you whether your pages are used as sources, which is worth knowing when calls hold up while clicks fall. How a local business shows up in Google's AI answers covers what helps.

Compare periods the right way

A number means little on its own. In the date filter, choose Compare and set two periods side by side:

• The last 28 days against the 28 days before, for the monthly check.
• The same months last year, for a seasonal business such as a wedding venue or a garden centre, whose searches rise and fall with the calendar.
• The four weeks after a change against the four weeks before, when you want to know whether a new page or title worked.

Mark the change on the chart itself. Since November 2025 you can right-click the Performance chart and add an annotation of up to 120 characters, such as "new emergency dentist page live". Everyone with access to the property sees it, so keep personal details out.

The other reports, and which can wait

• Page indexing: read it when a page is missing from results, and after a launch or a redesign.
• Sitemaps: check once that yours is submitted and has no errors, then again after any rebuild.
• Links: the sites that link to yours. How a local business gets links from other websites explains what to do with it.
• Core Web Vitals: how fast your pages feel on real visitors' phones. PageSpeed Insights explained covers the numbers.
• Manual actions and Security issues: both should say no issues. If either shows anything, act the same day.
• Insights: a simpler summary of the same data. Some extras, such as Google's query groups, appear only for sites with a large volume of searches.

The rest, from video indexing to the reports for products and events, matter only if your site has those things.

Let it email you

Search Console sends emails when it finds new problems, such as pages dropping out of the index or a security issue. Those emails are the best reason to set it up properly: they arrive whether or not anyone has logged in this month.

Make sure they reach someone. If the property was set up by a designer who has moved on, the warnings go to their inbox. Under Settings, then Users and permissions, check who has access, remove people who no longer work with you, and keep a verified owner inside the business.

A ten-minute check each month

Put it in the calendar for the first working day of each month, with one named person responsible:

• Performance, Search results: compare the last 28 days with the 28 days before, and note clicks and impressions.
• Queries: read the top 20. Note any new service searches, and any that fell away.
• Pages: check that your main service pages still earn clicks.
• Page indexing: look for important pages newly marked as not indexed.
• Manual actions and Security issues: confirm both say no issues.
• Write down one thing to change this month, and check its effect next month.

A tyre and brake garage that does this might see "brake pad replacement" climb into its top queries, with many impressions and few clicks. It rewrites the title and description of its brakes page to say what the job involves and that it is done the same day, then checks the same row next month.

Our Growth plan includes a monthly look at your Google results, reviews and enquiries in plain words, for owners who would rather someone else read the reports. The prices page has the details.

Common misreadings

• A dip in the last few days, which is often preliminary data, a weekend or a bank holiday.
• Expecting the table rows to add up to the total, which the omitted private queries prevent.
• Reading growth in searches for your own name as search work paying off. More often it means more people already know you.
• Comparing Search Console clicks with analytics visits. They count different things, and analytics misses people who block tracking or decline it.
• Chasing the position for one search typed from the office.

Search Console reports what happened. Nobody can promise where you will appear next month, whatever their report shows.