Search Console is the only place Google tells you how often your pages appeared in search, and it is free. Every number on this site that mentions impressions, position or click-through rate comes from it; there is no other honest source, and we will not scrape one.
New sites get it wrong in two ways: verifying the wrong kind of property, so half the site's traffic lands in a property that does not exist, and expecting data on day two.
The steps
- Add a Domain property, not a URL-prefix one'example.com' covers http, https, www and every subdomain in one property. 'https://www.example.com/' covers exactly that prefix. Choose the domain property unless you specifically need to separate a subdomain, and verify it with the DNS record it asks for.
- Submit the sitemapSitemaps, enter the sitemap URL, submit. Check a day later that the status is 'Success' and the discovered page count matches what you expected. A count that is far off means the sitemap lists URLs that redirect, are noindexed or canonicalise elsewhere.
- Request indexing for the handful of pages that matterURL inspection, one URL at a time, 'Request indexing'. There is a daily quota, so use it on the home page and the five or ten pages you most want found. This nudges the first crawl; it does not affect ranking.
- Check the Pages report after a weekIt will list pages that are indexed and pages that are not, with a reason for each. 'Crawled, currently not indexed' on a new site is normal and usually resolves; 'Excluded by noindex' or 'Blocked by robots.txt' on a page you wanted indexed is a bug to fix now.
- Wait, and read the first month's data as a baselineImpressions typically start appearing within days of indexing and take weeks to become stable enough to compare against. Nothing in the first month tells you whether the site is doing well. It tells you what the starting point is, which is what you need before changing anything you want to measure.
What the charts do not show
Search Console keeps sixteen months of data, samples the query report, and does not separate impressions from AI Overviews from ordinary results. Position is an average across every impression, so a page that ranks first for one query and fortieth for another reports twentieth. Read the query and page reports together; neither alone is the picture.
The API returns more rows than the interface shows. Anything that syncs Search Console — including Rankelle — reads through the API, which is why the tool's per-page numbers can differ slightly from what the sampled interface displays.
Questions people ask
My site is a week old and shows zero impressions. Is something wrong?
Almost certainly not. Check the Pages report for indexing errors; if the pages are indexed and the sitemap succeeded, the remaining ingredient is time. New domains with no links pointing at them take weeks to months to accumulate impressions, and no on-page change shortens that much.
Should I also set up Bing Webmaster Tools?
Yes, it takes five minutes and can import the verification from Search Console. Bing's index is what several answer engines search when they browse the web, so being in it matters for AI visibility beyond Bing's own small share of search.
Try it on your own site, free
The whole audit of every website you add, no card and no expiry. Pay only when you want the proof.