Atomic Media text

Atomic Media

Key Google Search Console metrics to monitor every month

Google Search Console

Let’s face it: Turning raw data into actionable insights can be as cryptic as decoding ancient hieroglyphics, especially for the SEO rookies in your crew.

That’s the challenge I addressed in my SMX Advanced 2024 session.

Didn’t catch it? No worries. I’m recapping it all in this article series, one juicy nugget at a time. This is Part 2, so if you missed Part 1, check it out.

Get ready for a quick overview of key technical SEO metrics to track in Google Search Console. Compare your list with mine – you might spot something your SEO team has missed.

Senior SEO managers: This article is for your technical SEO newcomers. It explains how I would introduce Google Search Console metrics to bridge their knowledge gaps quickly.

Top tips for looking at Google Search Console metrics

Focus on one metric at a time
Check for more metrics

Let’s zero in on the essential technical SEO metrics in Google Search Console. 

Page indexing

These reports are the bread and butter of every technical SEO. The Page indexing section of Google Search Console tells you if your content is making it to the SERPs. 

But don’t just glance at the numbers. Dig deeper than the end of the month numbers. Look for fluctuations over time, not just a snapshot of one day at the end of the month.

Pages indexed

This one seems easy, right? If your indexed pages go down, you have fewer URLs ranking over time. That’s usually a problem.

Too many SEOs miss fluctuations in these Google Search Console charts by looking at the default view.

This causes the combination of non-indexed and indexed pages in the chart muddy the waters, causing you to miss what is happening. Instead, turn off Pages not indexed to look at indexed pages alone. 

Pages indexed - fluctuations

Pages not indexed

This count reveals how many URLs Google knows about but hasn’t indexed. Remember to toggle off Pages indexed for a clearer view of what actually happened over time.

Why pages are not indexed

Here’s where the sleuthing kicks in because you can dive into why pages aren’t indexed. This section allows you to dig deeper and uncover why those pages aren’t getting indexed, along with a list of reasons and example URLs.

The most common culprits include:

I ignore plenty of the usual suspects – unless that fourth column trend line starts shifting. 

For my clients, these metrics rarely budge. So I spend three seconds or less looking at the trend line. If things are trending well and there aren’t any fluctuations, then move on.

Fluctuations in trend lines

The metrics that only get three seconds or less reviewing for major trend line fluctuations:

Note: Your Google Search Console might not show every possible reason for pages not being indexed because only the issues your site actually faces make it to your list of reasons why pages aren’t indexed. That said, most enterprise companies will see all (or nearly all) of the reasons above.

Videos indexed

This is where Google breaks down how many videos are indexed. 

In the video mode update on Dec. 4, 2023, many videos were booted from the index for various reasons, which you will find in this section. 

Tip: If video indexing isn’t in your SEO roadmap, skip these metrics.

Why videos are not indexed

This is another place to figure out why Google has rejected your content (in this case, videos). 

Google makes it very clear what must be done to get your videos indexed, and many of the reasons are technical SEO action items.

The most common culprits include:

(View Google’s complete list of reasons.)

Tip: If video indexing isn’t in your SEO roadmap, you can breeze past these metrics. Unfortunately, many companies’ video SEO efforts have been sidelined by other priorities and if this is you, then you can probably skip this section until you’re ready to take action on video SEO.

Dig deeper: How to use Google Search Console to unlock easy SEO wins

Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.


See terms.


XML sitemap errors

XML sitemaps are search engine fuel, packed with crucial signals. For small sites, issues here typically don’t create problems. 

Enterprise SEOs, watch these like a hawk – any glitches can prevent new URLs from being crawled, create hreflang tag confusion for search engines and prevent search engines from catching updates and crawling fresh content.

XML sitemap error 1
XML sitemap error 2

How to do this:

"Page Indexing” or “Video Page Indexing”

Tips: 

Mobile Core Web Vitals 

Mobile Core Web Vitals are the most important for SEO and deserve the most attention. Google also has much higher expectations for these URLs, so this is where you’ll focus most of your Core Web Vitals attention. 

This is a report I like developers to see regularly, because you can see how URLs are flipping between the metrics and on which date. This can help you troubleshoot by coordinating these dates with changes on the site, CMS, DAM, network, etc.

Metrics to monitor: 

Mobile Core Web Vitals 

The historical chart is great for quick trends, but it’s limited to a short window. For the bigger picture, drop the data into a spreadsheet and build your own chart. 

You’ll often find that things look fine now, but 5 or 6 months ago, the metrics were far better – don’t let that slip past you.

Tip: This is a good report for development to see on a regular basis. Consider a regular metrics readout cadence with development to discuss what’s going on and compare it with what they know is happening in releases, server maintenance, third-party code and more.

Why mobile URLs don’t have a ‘good’ Core Web Vitals score

This data explains why particular URLs aren’t considered good by Google. Unfortunately, it doesn’t tell you how to address the problem (that requires you to do a Core Web Vitals audit). 

In these metrics, you’ll get:

Metrics to monitor in this report:

Developers usually need more than just metrics. They want the full list of URLs with low scores.

Luckily, Google gives you and your devs sample URLs to evaluate, though it’s not the comprehensive list they crave. To dig deeper for more URL examples, tap into the Google Search Console API for more data.

Tips:

Desktop Core Web Vitals metrics

This is exactly the same as mobile. Usually, I give this a quick gander, but most of the time is spent on mobile core web vitals metrics.

What is often interesting in the desktop metrics is correlations between metrics improving in desktop, but getting worse on mobile devices. This is a good place for development to figure out why mobile metrics got worse, but desktop improved.

Metrics to monitor: 

Why Desktop Core Web Vitals metrics are low

Frankly, this is not a priority for the sites I work on. Not that I never look at them, but in the grand scheme of things we prioritize fixing mobile issues, anticipating that fixing mobile issues will fix desktop issues.

For a few of my B2B enterprise clients, with a primarily desktop-focused audience, we dial up the attention on these metrics to make sure nothing slips through the cracks:

Rich results from Schema

Adding Schema markup to your site unlocks special features that enhance your organic listings, such as breadcrumb links, product information and more. 

In Google Search Console, URLs with code intended to trigger these SERP enhancements are tracked in a section called “Enhancements.” 

The list of “Enhancements” listed in Google Search Console will vary based, on your site’s setup. Here are the most common enhancements you’ll likely see:

Each of these enhancements have a report indicating the number of URLs that are valid, invalid and issues to address. 

What’s next?

Now that you have the key Google Search Console metrics, make sure you track them regularly (monthly works best). 

Remember to drop these metrics into a spreadsheet. Google’s limited historical data might leave you hanging when you need those insights down the road. 

In the next article of this series, I’ll show you a few metrics tucked away in the “settings” section of Google Search Console that few SEOs talk about, but I like to keep an eye on. 

Dig deeper: 3 underutilized Google Search Console reports for diagnosing traffic drops

Courtesy of Search Engine Land: News & Info About SEO, PPC, SEM, Search Engines & Search Marketing

Category seo news | Tags:

Social Networks : Technorati, Stumble it!, Digg, de.licio.us, Yahoo, reddit, Blogmarks, Google, Magnolia.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

No Responses to
“Key Google Search Console metrics to monitor every month”





XHTML: You can use these tags: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

By submitting a comment here you grant Atomic Media a perpetual license to reproduce your words and name/web site in attribution. Inappropriate comments will be removed at admin's discretion.