Google Search Console SEO Audit: 9 Powerful Reports Exposed

Every other SEO tool makes inferences about your site. Screaming Frog simulates a crawler. PageSpeed Insights runs a synthetic test. Ahrefs processes third-party data.

Google Search Console is Google telling you directly what it thinks about your site.

When GSC says a page is “Crawled, currently not indexed,” that is not a model prediction. It is Google’s documented explanation of a decision it already made. When it shows a Core Web Vitals failure, that is real Chrome user data from actual visits to your site in the last 28 days.

Starting every technical audit in Google Search Console is not a preference. It is the correct sequence because nothing else gives you ground truth.

If you have access to GSC but only use it to check keyword rankings, or if you want to understand which reports actually matter and what they are telling you, this guide walks through all nine systematically.

Before You Start: Set the Right Context

Set a custom date comparison before running any analysis: current 28 days versus the equivalent 28-day window one year ago. Year-over-year comparison eliminates seasonal variation and reveals genuine trend direction.

Note the “Last updated” timestamp on each report. Coverage and Core Web Vitals data can take up to 14 days to reflect recent changes. Performance data lags 2 to 3 days. If you deployed a fix yesterday and do not see it reflected yet, that is normal.

9 Reports in a Google Search Console SEO Audit

Report 1: Search Performance

Performance, then Search Results.

The three moves that extract the most value:

Find high-impression, low-CTR pages. Sort by Impressions descending. Look for pages with thousands of impressions and CTR below 2%. These pages appear in Google frequently but almost nobody clicks. The cause is almost always a weak title tag or meta description. Improving these requires zero ranking improvement.

A page with 10,000 monthly impressions and 1.5% CTR earns 150 clicks. Improving CTR to 4% produces 400 clicks from the same ranking position. No new links. No new content. Just better messaging.

Identify keyword cannibalization. Add the Page dimension. Filter by an important page. Look at the Queries view. If two separate pages are both appearing for the same set of queries, their ranking signals are splitting. Consolidation or clearer content differentiation resolves this.

Compare year-over-year trends. A page losing impressions year-over-year on queries it previously ranked for is either slipping in rankings, facing new competition, or losing to a more clearly relevant piece of content.

Report 2: Index Coverage (Pages)

Indexing, then Pages. This is the most important diagnostic report in any Google Search Console SEO audit.

Indexed: Correct state for all pages you want to rank. A lower-than-expected count is your first signal.

Not Indexed: Expand every subcategory. Read the specific reason for each group:

“Crawled, currently not indexed”: Google arrived, decided not to include. This is a content quality problem, not a technical problem. The fix is improving the page’s unique value, not changing a setting.

“Discovered, currently not indexed”: Google knows the URL but has not prioritised crawling it. Improve internal linking from indexed pages to these URLs.

“Submitted URL not found (404)”: your sitemap lists dead pages. Clean the sitemap. Redirect dead URLs with external backlinks.

“Excluded by noindex tag”: verify every instance is intentional. This is where accidental mass exclusions hide.

“Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user”: Google overrode your canonical choice. Investigate what Google chose instead and why it has stronger signals.

Report 3: Sitemaps

Indexing, then Sitemaps.

Submitted URL count, last read date, and any errors. A last read date several weeks old despite active publishing indicates a fetching problem. Submit a fresh version manually and verify the sitemap URL is declared in robots.txt.

Report 4: URL Inspection Tool

Enter any URL in the GSC search bar.

Four data points that matter:

Coverage status: indexed, excluded, or not processed?

Last crawl date: when did Googlebot most recently visit? A date more than 6 weeks old on an important updated page warrants investigation.

Google’s canonical: if this differs from your specified canonical, you have a conflict. Google’s choice is usually the one with stronger signals.

Rendered page: click “Test Live URL” then “View Tested Page.” Content visible in your browser but absent from this screenshot is invisible to Googlebot. This is the most direct JavaScript rendering diagnostic available.

Use “Request Indexing” after fixing Critical issues on important pages.

Report 5: Core Web Vitals

Experience, then Core Web Vitals. Review Mobile and Desktop separately.

The key insight: pages appear grouped by URL pattern. One “Poor” group may contain 300 URLs from a single page template. Fix the template once and all 300 pages move to Good simultaneously.

Click into any failing group to see the specific metric (LCP, INP, or CLS) and example URLs. Run those in PageSpeed Insights for detailed fix recommendations.

Full fix guide: How to Improve Core Web Vitals: 12 Proven LCP, INP Fixes

Report 6: Mobile Usability

Experience, then Mobile Usability.

Every error type is a template-level CSS problem. Fix the template, resolve all affected pages. The four common types:

• “Clickable elements too close together”: increase padding to 48x48px tap targets
• “Viewport not configured”: add viewport meta tag to HTML head
• “Content wider than screen”: apply max-width: 100%; overflow-x: hidden
• “Text too small to read”: set minimum body font-size to 16px

Report 7: Manual Actions

Security and Manual Actions, then Manual Actions.

Expected result: “No issues detected.” Check this on every single audit.

Manual actions are penalties applied by Google’s human review team. They suppress rankings for affected pages or your entire site. They are not always accompanied by prominent notifications.

If a manual action is present: fix the specific violation completely, document remediation steps thoroughly, and submit a Reconsideration Request through GSC.

Report 8: Security Issues

Security and Manual Actions, then Security Issues.

Any flagged security issue triggers browser warnings before visitors see your content. The warning appears before the page loads. CTR damage on affected pages is essentially total.

If anything is flagged: investigate, clean the content, patch the vulnerability, submit a Security Issue review request.

Report 9: Rich Results Status

Experience, then Enhancements.

For each schema type detected, GSC shows Errors (blocking eligibility), Warnings (reducing quality), and Valid (currently eligible for rich display).

Fixing errors in these reports unlocks additional SERP real estate at your existing rankings: FAQ dropdowns, star ratings, How-To steps, and breadcrumbs. All of these improve CTR without any ranking improvement required.

Monthly Monitoring Routine

Run these checks once per month. Takes 30 to 60 minutes and catches new problems before they compound:

• Coverage: any new “Error” status URLs this month?
• Core Web Vitals: is the Good URL percentage stable or growing?
• Performance: any significant week-over-week click drops on important pages?
• URL Inspection: check newly published important pages
• Manual Actions: confirm no new penalties
• Sitemap last fetch date: recent?

For diagnosing crawl issues alongside your GSC data: How Does Google Crawl a Website: 6 Powerful Stages Revealed

For the complete audit process this data feeds: How to Conduct a Technical SEO Site Audit: 14 Proven Steps

Full audit reference: Technical SEO Audit: 14 Proven Steps to Dominate Rankings

Frequently Asked Questions

Key Takeaways

• Start every technical audit in GSC. It provides Google’s direct view, not a third-party inference.
• The Coverage report is the most important. Read every Not Indexed subcategory individually. Each has a different cause and a different fix.
• “Crawled, currently not indexed” is a content quality problem, not a technical problem. Improving the page is the fix.
• Core Web Vitals groups pages by template. One template fix moves hundreds of pages simultaneously.
• Run the monthly monitoring routine to catch new problems before they compound into ranking emergencies.