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Nitrogen

Google Search Console

Google Search Console

Section titled “Google Search Console”

The single most important SEO tool. Free, official, comprehensive. This page is the deep guide; for setup basics see Search Engine Integration.

What it provides

Section titled “What it provides”
  • Coverage data: which URLs are indexed, which excluded, why
  • Performance: search queries, clicks, impressions, average position
  • Core Web Vitals: 28-day field data from real Chrome users
  • Mobile usability: device-specific issues
  • Manual actions: penalties (rare but critical to monitor)
  • Security issues: hack alerts, malware warnings
  • Enhancements: rich result coverage (Article, Breadcrumb, FAQ, etc.)
  • Sitemaps: submission status and discovery stats
  • Links: top external and internal linking pages
  • URL Inspection: per-URL index status and real-time crawl test

Setup

Section titled “Setup”

Property types

Section titled “Property types”

Two types — add both for the same site:

  1. Domain property (DNS verification)

    • Covers all subdomains and all protocols (HTTP + HTTPS)
    • Single property for example.com, www.example.com, blog.example.com, etc.

  2. URL prefix property

    • Covers only the exact prefix (e.g., https://www.example.com/)
    • Need separate properties for each subdomain/protocol combination

Both are recommended because:

  • Domain property shows aggregate data
  • URL prefix properties show segmented data
  • Some reports differ between them

Verification methods

Section titled “Verification methods”

In order of stability:

  1. DNS TXT record (Domain property — most stable, can’t be accidentally removed by frontend changes)
  2. Google Analytics integration (uses existing GA verification — if you remove GA, you lose verification)
  3. Google Tag Manager (uses GTM container ID — same caveat)
  4. HTML file upload (file at /google[code].html)
  5. HTML meta tag (<meta name="google-site-verification"> in <head>)

For Nitrogen sites, DNS TXT for Domain property is the recommended primary method. Add HTML meta as a secondary fallback.

Coverage report

Section titled “Coverage report”

Located at: Coverage section in left sidebar.

Categories

Section titled “Categories”
  • Valid — Pages indexed in Google. Healthy state.
  • Excluded — Pages NOT indexed, with various reasons:
    • “Excluded by noindex tag” (intentional — verify this is correct)
    • “Crawled, currently not indexed” (Google chose not to index — quality signal)
    • “Discovered, currently not indexed” (Google knows about it but hasn’t crawled)
    • “Page with redirect” (it redirects, so not indexed itself)
    • “Duplicate without user-selected canonical” (Google sees duplicates, no canonical specified)
    • “Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user” (you set a canonical, Google overrode)
    • “Alternate page with proper canonical tag” (correctly canonicalized to another URL)
  • Errors — Genuinely broken pages:
    • “Submitted URL not found (404)”
    • “Submitted URL has crawl issue”
    • “Server error (5xx)”
    • “Redirect error”
    • “Soft 404”

What to monitor

Section titled “What to monitor”
  • Sudden drops in Valid count → investigate what changed (deployment? content removal? noindex accident?)
  • Spike in Errors → fix immediately, may indicate site-wide regression
  • “Crawled, currently not indexed” trend — if growing, suggests Google sees your content as low-value

Healthy patterns

Section titled “Healthy patterns”
  • 95%+ of submitted URLs are Valid
  • Excluded category is mostly legitimate (redirects, noindex on admin)
  • Errors near zero
  • Trend over time is stable or growing

Search Performance report

Section titled “Search Performance report”

Located at: Performance → Search results.

Metrics

Section titled “Metrics”
  • Clicks: actual visits from search results
  • Impressions: times your URL appeared in search results
  • CTR: clicks ÷ impressions (Click-Through Rate)
  • Position: average ranking when shown

Filters

Section titled “Filters”

You can slice by:

  • Query: what people searched
  • Page: which URL got impressions
  • Country, Device, Search appearance (rich results vs regular)

Optimization opportunities

Section titled “Optimization opportunities”

High impressions + low CTR + position 1-3: title and description need work (you rank well but the snippet isn’t compelling)

High impressions + medium position (5-10): content optimization opportunity (could rank #1-3 with better content)

Many queries you weren’t targeting: content gaps to fill (write more on the topics where you’re getting impressions)

Sudden CTR drop: usually a snippet preview change or competitor improvement. Check the SERP for the query, see what’s appearing now.

Comparison views

Section titled “Comparison views”

Toggle “Compare” to see two date ranges side by side:

  • Last 28 days vs previous 28 days
  • This year vs last year
  • After-deployment vs before

Look for queries/pages with significant changes (positive or negative).

Core Web Vitals report

Section titled “Core Web Vitals report”

Located at: Core Web Vitals.

Shows field data (real users) from the last 28 days:

  • Good (green): all metrics in good range
  • Needs Improvement (orange): one or more in needs-improvement range
  • Poor (red): one or more in poor range

Grouped by page-pattern: similar URLs cluster together (e.g., all blog posts in one group), making it easier to identify template-level issues.

Drilling down shows:

  • Specific URLs in the group
  • Which metric is failing (LCP, INP, or CLS)
  • Mobile vs Desktop breakdown

Page experience

Section titled “Page experience”

A separate section (Page Experience → Top issues) combines CWV with HTTPS, mobile-friendliness, and intrusive interstitials into a single signal.

URL Inspection tool

Section titled “URL Inspection tool”

For any URL on your domain:

  • Coverage: current index status, last crawl date, crawled-as device
  • Live test: real-time re-fetch and re-analysis
  • View crawled page: HTML preview (post-JavaScript), screenshot, resources blocked
  • Enhancements: which rich results the URL qualifies for

Use cases

Section titled “Use cases”

New page not appearing in search:

  1. URL Inspection → enter URL
  2. If “URL is not on Google” → click “Request Indexing”
  3. Google adds it to the indexing queue (~hours to days)

Suspect rendering issue:

  1. URL Inspection → “View crawled page” → “Screenshot”
  2. Compare with your expected appearance
  3. Check for resources blocked (CSS/JS that didn’t load)

Verify content updates were seen:

  1. URL Inspection → “Test live URL”
  2. View rendered HTML
  3. Confirm new content is visible

Daily quota

Section titled “Daily quota”

Limited to ~10 manual indexing requests per day per property. For larger batches, use sitemaps and IndexNow.

Sitemaps section

Section titled “Sitemaps section”

Located at: Sitemaps.

Status indicators

Section titled “Status indicators”
  • Last read: when Google last fetched the sitemap (should be recent)
  • Status: Success / Has issues / Couldn’t fetch
  • Discovered URLs: total in sitemap
  • Indexed: how many are in Google’s index

Resubmitting

Section titled “Resubmitting”

After major content changes:

  1. Sitemaps → click your sitemap → resubmit (or just wait, Google rechecks regularly)

If the sitemap shows “Couldn’t fetch” status:

  • Verify the URL returns valid XML
  • Check Search Console’s robots.txt isn’t blocking it
  • Verify it doesn’t redirect
Section titled “Links report”

Located at: Links.

Section titled “Internal Links”
  • Top linked pages: which of your pages have the most internal links
  • Useful for identifying orphaned pages (URLs not in this list aren’t internally linked)
Section titled “External Links”
  • Top linking sites: domains pointing to you
  • Top linking text: anchor text patterns from external sites
  • Top linked pages: your most-linked pages from external sources

Anchor text patterns

Section titled “Anchor text patterns”

Watch for suspicious patterns:

  • Many links with identical commercial anchor text (“best laravel agency”) → may indicate spammy link building or competitor sabotage
  • Links from low-quality domains
  • Sudden spike in backlinks (could be positive or negative)

For removal of toxic backlinks: use Search Console’s Disavow Tool (legacy URL inspection tool feature, now requires careful judgment).

Manual Actions

Section titled “Manual Actions”

Located at: Security & Manual Actions → Manual Actions.

Empty for most sites (no penalty applied). If a penalty is active:

  • Notification email from Google
  • Description of the violation
  • Affected URLs or “site-wide”
  • “Reconsideration” submission once fixed

Common violations:

  • Unnatural link patterns (paid backlinks)
  • Thin content
  • Hidden text or cloaking
  • User-generated spam (forum/comment SEO spam)

For Nitrogen-grade B2B sites, manual actions are extremely rare. Monitor weekly just in case.

Mobile Usability (Page Experience)

Section titled “Mobile Usability (Page Experience)”

Located at: Mobile Usability.

Issues flagged:

  • Text too small to read
  • Clickable elements too close together
  • Content wider than screen
  • Viewport not set

For Nitrogen sites built mobile-first, this should be clean. Spot-check after layout changes.

Practical workflow

Section titled “Practical workflow”

Daily (5 minutes)

Section titled “Daily (5 minutes)”
  • Check Search Performance for any sudden trends
  • Check Coverage for new errors
  • Check Manual Actions and Security Issues (peace of mind)

Weekly (20 minutes)

Section titled “Weekly (20 minutes)”
  • Review Search Performance: top queries, pages, CTR
  • Identify content gaps (queries getting impressions but you don’t have targeted content)
  • Review Core Web Vitals trends
  • Check Sitemap status

Monthly (1 hour)

Section titled “Monthly (1 hour)”
  • Compare to previous month: clicks, impressions, position trends
  • Review Links report for new backlinks
  • Audit Coverage exclusions: any unexpected categories growing?
  • Plan content based on query data

Quarterly

Section titled “Quarterly”

Cross-references

Section titled “Cross-references”