The short answer
Create a domain property in Search Console and verify it via a DNS record. Then submit your sitemap. After that, the Performance report shows you up to 16 months back which queries you appear for and how often people click [1][7]. Since 2026 there's also a separate report for AI Overviews and AI Mode [12].
For everyday use, five reports are enough: Performance, Page indexing, Sitemaps, URL inspection and Core Web Vitals. 15 minutes once a month are enough to spot problems early. The checklist for this is at the end of the article.
Domain or URL-prefix property: which should I choose?
When you create a property, Search Console asks for the property type. The choice determines which addresses end up in your data [1].
| Feature | Domain property | URL-prefix property |
|---|---|---|
| Input | example.com | https://www.example.com/ |
| Scope | All subdomains, http and https | Only URLs with exactly this beginning |
| Verification | Only via DNS record | Several ways, e.g. HTML file or meta tag |
| Good for | The overall picture | Individual areas, e.g. a blog |
Our recommendation: start with the domain property. It also shows data from addresses you don't think of, such as the variant without "www" or an old subdomain. You can add a URL-prefix property later if you want to analyse one area separately.
How do I verify that I own the website?
For a domain property you add a TXT or CNAME record at your domain provider. Search Console shows you the value. For URL-prefix properties, an HTML file, a meta tag, the Google Analytics code or Google Tag Manager also work [2].
- Leave the record in place permanently. Google checks regularly whether the proof is still there. If you delete it, you lose access after a grace period [2].
- Keep access within your own company. Create the property with a company account. Agencies and freelancers get user rights, but not the only owner account.
- Add a second owner. If one person leaves, access is preserved.
How do I read the Performance report correctly?
The Performance report is the heart of it. It shows four metrics [3][4]:
- Clicks: how often someone clicked through to your site from Google Search.
- Impressions: how often a link to your site was visible in the results. In carousels it only counts once it's been scrolled into view.
- CTR: clicks divided by impressions.
- Average position: the average of your best position per query.
The position is often misread. Google explains it like this: if you appear in position 2 for query A and in position 3 for query B, the average is 2.5 [4]. So a position of 8 doesn't mean "8th place on Google". It's an average across many searches, countries and devices. That's why you should always look at individual queries and pages, not just the overall value.
You should know three peculiarities:
- Rare queries are missing. For privacy reasons, Google doesn't show anonymised queries in the table. That's why the sum of the rows often adds up to less than the total [5].
- The data is delayed. It's normally available after two to three days. The table shows at most 1,000 rows [6].
- Separate brand and non-brand. A dedicated filter separates queries with and without your company name. It isn't available for websites with few impressions [5]. Anyone already searching for you knows you. You find new customers via the queries without your brand name.
Example: a page has many impressions, position 6 and a CTR below one percent. Then it's usually worth revising the title and description. The page is being seen but rarely clicked.
Why aren't all my pages indexed?
The Page indexing report shows all URLs Google knows and whether they're in the index [8]. A red "Not indexed" scares many people. But Google itself says: not every URL has to be indexed. The goal is for every important page to be in the index in its canonical version [8].
- Page with redirect or duplicate: usually intended. Google only shows one version of a page.
- Excluded by "noindex" tag: correct for thank-you pages or internal pages. An alarm signal if a service page is listed there.
- Discovered – currently not indexed: Google knows the URL but hasn't crawled it yet.
- Crawled – currently not indexed: Google has read the page but hasn't added it (yet). Strengthening the content and linking to it better internally often helps.
- Not found (404): unproblematic if the page was removed deliberately. If it has links from outside, redirect it to a suitable page.
Once you've fixed an issue, you can start validation in the report. According to Google, that usually takes about two weeks [8].
What do I need the Sitemaps report for?
Here you enter the address of your XML sitemap, usually /sitemap.xml. That way Google learns which pages exist. The status "Success" means: all URLs are queued for crawling [9]. That's no guarantee of indexing [9]. After every major change, check whether the status is still right and the number of discovered URLs is plausible.
What can URL inspection do?
Enter a single address in the search bar at the top. You'll then see whether the page is in the index, which canonical URL Google chose and when it was last crawled. Important: this is the stored version, not a live fetch [10].
With "Test live URL", Google fetches the page immediately. That's how you check whether a correction has arrived. Afterwards you can request indexing. The number of requests per day is limited, and inclusion isn't guaranteed [10]. For many changed pages, the sitemap is the better route.
What does the Core Web Vitals report show?
The report uses measurements from real Chrome users from the Chrome UX Report. It rates three metrics, separately for mobile and desktop [11]:
| Metric | Measures | Good |
|---|---|---|
| LCP | When the largest content has loaded | up to 2.5 s |
| INP | How quickly the page responds to input | up to 200 ms |
| CLS | How much the layout shifts while loading | up to 0.1 |
Small websites often see "No data" here. That's not an error: without enough real visits there's no field data [11]. In that case, test your most important pages individually, for example with PageSpeed Insights.
Can I see whether I appear in AI Overviews?
Yes, by now you can. Clicks and impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode feed into the normal Performance report, under the search type "Web" [13]. For a long time they couldn't be shown separately there.
Since 2026 there's been a separate report on generative AI features. According to Google it has been rolled out to all websites worldwide since 31 August 2026 [12]. It shows how often links to your site were displayed in AI Overviews and AI Mode. You can filter by pages, countries, time period and device. The help page for this report doesn't mention clicks or queries [12]. If you don't see it, according to Google your site probably hasn't had enough such impressions yet.
Search Console doesn't show whether you appear in ChatGPT, Claude or Perplexity. What you can control there is in the article AI crawlers and robots.txt.
Do I also need Bing Webmaster Tools?
We recommend it, because the effort is small. Bing Webmaster Tools can import websites directly from Search Console. They're then verified automatically [14]. It can take up to 48 hours for the first data to arrive [14].
Bing is interesting mainly because of Copilot. Since February 2026 the "AI Performance" report, as a public preview, has shown how often your pages are cited in Copilot and in AI summaries on Bing. It also names the search terms with which the AI found your content [15]. The announcement doesn't mention click figures.
The 15-minute routine for every month
We use this checklist as a starting point. Set yourself a fixed date, for example the first Monday of the month:
- Performance (5 minutes): compare the last 28 days with the previous period. Have clicks and impressions fallen noticeably? Then filter by pages and look for the cause.
- Non-brand queries (2 minutes): which new terms have been added? Are there questions you don't have a page for yet?
- Pages with a weak CTR (2 minutes): many impressions, few clicks? Put title and description on the list.
- Page indexing (2 minutes): is an important page listed under "Not indexed"? Check with URL inspection.
- Sitemaps (1 minute): status "Success"? Date of the last read current?
- Core Web Vitals (1 minute): new URLs rated "Poor"? Then check the affected template.
- AI report (1 minute): which pages appear in AI Overviews? Are there patterns, such as guides rather than service pages?
- Note (1 minute): record three figures: clicks, impressions, most important new query. That way you see the trend over months.
And after every relaunch or major rebuild: check weekly instead of monthly for two weeks. What else matters there is in the website project checklist.