What’s the Deal with the New Google Search Console?

There’s a new Search Console in town. Whether you’re an SEO fanatic or not, you should be paying attention to this update.

Read on to find out what the new Google Search Console entails and why it’s more than a superficial makeover.

You can finally (!) get data beyond the past 90 days

With the old Search Console, users could only obtain data from the most recent 90-day period. This limitation meant that you had to invest in third-party tools to see more historical data or ensure that you were downloading data on a regular basis and saving it in your records.

Now, users can view clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position metrics for as long as the website has been connected to Search Console. However, this only applies to the top 1,000 queries or pages. Still, this is big news.

There’s more information on indexation

There’s a new Indexation Coverage report that provides webmasters with more insight into their site. For example, you can now obtain information on pages that are being indexed in the SERP but are blocked by the robots.txt. This feature likely means that Google suspects this blocked page is important, which means you should definitely revisit your disallow statements.

Plus, pages that are indexed but not included in the XML sitemap are reported on as well. This helps encourage users to review their current XML sitemap to check if it’s optimized and up-to-date.

It’s sleek

Let’s be honest. The old Search Console looks a bit like the web circa 2002. It was in dire need of a facelift.

The new Search Console’s design is much more modern, user-friendly, and looks like the new AdWords layout. We appreciate the design consistency, Google!

While the new Search Console is rolling out to more and more sites, it’s still a work in progress

Google’s Webmaster Central Blog announced that the old Search Console and new Search Console will both exist for the time being. The new Search Console is still in beta, so users can still toggle between the two versions.

Even though the new Search Console isn’t perfect or totally complete yet, it’s a much-needed and much-appreciated update in the SEO world.

According to Justin McIntyre, our Director of SEO & Content, “these updates mean that marketers don’t have to rely as much on outside tools and can really lean on Google Search Console moving forward.”

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Any questions on the new Google Search Console? Don’t be afraid to send them our way. Tweet us @Perfect_Search.