Google Search Console: Complete Setup Guide for Indian Websites

Google Search Console is free and essential. Most Indian website owners ignore it.

Setup

1. Go to search.google.com/search-console
2. Add your domain (prefer domain property over URL property)
3. Verify via DNS TXT record (most reliable) or HTML file
4. Submit your sitemap.xml

What it shows

• Search performance: Clicks, impressions, CTR, position
• URL inspection: How Google sees individual pages
• Coverage: Pages indexed, errors, exclusions
• Sitemaps: What you've submitted, discovery
• Mobile usability: Mobile-specific issues
• Core Web Vitals: Real-world performance
• Manual actions: Any Google penalties
• Links: Who links to your site

Key reports to check weekly

1. Performance → Queries: What people search for to find you
2. Performance → Pages: Your best-performing URLs
3. Coverage → Errors: Pages Google can't index
4. Mobile Usability: Broken mobile experience

Common errors and fixes

• Soft 404: Page returns 200 but looks empty. Fix: ensure error pages return 404 status
• Crawled — currently not indexed: Google saw but didn't index. Often thin content; improve quality
• Discovered — not crawled: Google knows about URL but hasn't visited. Usually fixes itself
• Server error (5xx): Your site was down when Google visited. Monitor uptime
• Mobile not usable: Touch targets too close, text too small, content wider than screen

Using GSC to improve rankings

1. Find queries where you rank 5-15 with high impressions
2. Improve those pages to target top 3
3. Often easiest wins in SEO — quick gains available

GSC vs Google Analytics

• GSC: what happens BEFORE click (searches, impressions, rankings)
• GA4: what happens AFTER click (behavior, conversions) Use both for complete picture.