Key Google Search Console Metrics to Monitor Monthly

Decoding data into meaningful insights can feel like cracking ancient codes, especially for those new to SEO.

Go through the essential Google Search Console (GSC) metrics to monitor for effective technical SEO.

Reviewing Google Search Console Metrics

Avoid Comparing Only Two Data Points: Don’t just compare last month’s data to the prior month.

That’s like looking at two photos and missing the whole movie, particularly the important action in between.

It’s essential to observe the highs and lows throughout the month to get the full picture.

Focus on One Metric at a Time: Google often stacks data in bar charts, which can obscure important fluctuations.

Turn off other metrics temporarily and analyze each one individually to gain deeper insights.

Save Charts for Future Use: Screenshots of GSC charts can be invaluable down the road.

Google’s data is only available for a few months, so having a historical reference may prove crucial later.

Regularly Record Data: To track progress over time, capture key metrics in a spreadsheet regularly.

While daily tracking isn’t practical unless using the API, recording data at the end of each month allows for trend analysis.

Look for Additional Metrics: GSC defaults to showing the top 10 metrics.

Check for more hidden insights by scrolling to the bottom or switching to the next page of results.

Investigate Changes Thoroughly: Any significant changes in metrics should be investigated to determine whether they require action.

Identifying the exact date a metric shifted can help to pinpoint the cause and decide whether it’s worth addressing.

Track Website Releases: Keep a record of website updates and releases to correlate changes in GSC data with specific deployments.

Attend dev team meetings and review release notes to stay in the loop on new features or fixes.

Key Google Search Console Metrics for Technical SEO

Page Indexing
This is the heart of technical SEO.

The “Page Indexing” section in GSC shows whether the content is being indexed and appearing on search engine result pages (SERPs).

Pages Indexed: If the number of indexed pages decreases, having fewer URLs ranking, which could signal a problem.

To get a clearer view, turn off the “Pages Not Indexed” option in GSC and focus on the fluctuations in indexed pages alone.

Pages Not Indexed: This metric shows how many URLs Google knows about but has not indexed.

To analyze this effectively, toggle off “Pages Indexed” to focus solely on non-indexed pages.

Why Pages Aren’t Indexed
This section helps uncover why certain pages aren’t indexed.

Typical reasons include:

404 errors (page not found)
5xx errors (server issues)
Redirect errors
No index tags
Duplicate content

If these trends remain steady, there’s usually no need for concern.

However, any significant changes should be investigated promptly to ensure that everything is functioning properly.

By consistently tracking these Google Search Console metrics, ensure that website stays healthy, indexed, and visible to search engines.

Stay vigilant and proactive to catch potential issues early on.

Metrics Reviewed in Three Seconds or Less for Major Trend Fluctuations

There are several key metrics that typically only get a brief glance unless there’s a major trend change.

These include:

Crawled – currently not indexed
Discovered – currently not indexed
Blocked by robots.txt
Soft 404 errors
Blocked due to other 4xx issues

Google Search Console (GSC) doesn’t display every possible reason for pages not being indexed.

Instead, it highlights only the issues the site actually encounters, making the list of non-indexed reasons site-specific.

Videos Indexed

Google breaks down how many videos are indexed in the GSC report.

Videos Indexed: This shows the number of videos from the site that are in Google’s index.

Make sure to focus on this metric separately in the chart by turning off the “Pages not indexed” filter.

(Find this data in the GSC report within the top chart; turn off “Videos not indexed”)

Videos Not Indexed: This shows how many videos failed to make it into Google’s index. Again, view this metric individually by turning off “Pages not indexed.”

(Check the GSC report in the same top chart after turning off “Videos not indexed”)

If video SEO isn’t a priority in the strategy, skip these metrics.

Why Videos Aren’t Indexed

Use GSC to identify why certain videos aren’t getting indexed.

Google clearly outlines the necessary actions for getting the videos indexed.

Many of these are related to technical SEO and may include:

The video isn’t part of the main content on the page.
Google can’t determine the video’s position or size.
The thumbnail is missing or invalid.
The thumbnail is in an unsupported format.
The thumbnail size is invalid.
The thumbnail is blocked by robots.txt.

Neglecting video SEO can put the content at a disadvantage, especially as video continues to grow in importance.—

XML Sitemap Errors

XML sitemaps are essential for search engine optimization, as they provide important signals to search engines.

For small websites, issues here are generally minor.

However, for larger enterprises, errors can have significant consequences, such as:

Preventing new URLs from being crawled.
Confusing search engines with incorrect hreflang tags.
Hindering search engines from recognizing updates and fresh content.

Always ensure each XML sitemap returns a “Success” status.

To Address XML Sitemap Errors

1. Go to the XML Sitemaps page in GSC.
2. Click on the relevant XML sitemap.
3. Once the page refreshes, click on the “Page Indexing” or “Video Page Indexing” link.
4. Review the page for any issues.

For enterprise-level websites with hundreds of sitemaps, focus on key XML sitemaps replicated across various regions, languages, or business divisions.

If the indexed pages drop noticeably, these reports can help identify which part of the site is affected.

Mobile Core Web Vitals

Mobile Core Web Vitals are crucial for SEO and should be closely monitored.

Google has high expectations for mobile performance, making these metrics especially important.

It tracks how URLs fluctuate between good, poor, and needing improvement, and provides insight into specific dates when issues arise.

This can help troubleshoot performance by matching dates with site updates, CMS changes, or third-party code deployments.

Metrics to Focus On

Mobile good URLs
Mobile poor URLs
Mobile needs improvement URLs

The historical chart in GSC is useful for spotting short-term trends, but for a more comprehensive view, export the data to a spreadsheet and create the own custom chart.

It’s a good idea to establish a regular review cadence with the development team.

This will help align website performance metrics with ongoing technical changes, server maintenance, and third-party integrations.

This rewrite maintains the structure and key points while making the text more concise and clear.

Mobile URLs with Poor Core Web Vitals Scores

To check how the mobile URLs are performing, view the Core Web Vitals report in Google Search Console by selecting “open report” in the Mobile section.

This data reveals why certain URLs are not performing well according to Google’s standards.

However, it won’t tell how to fix the issues—that requires a Core Web Vitals audit.

The Report, will find:

The number of URLs with poor scores in any of the Core Web Vitals metrics.
A sample list of URLs grouped by Google based on common issues.

While it’s not a complete list, it provides enough examples to help to identify patterns and areas for improvement.

Key Metrics to Monitor for Mobile:

LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) issues:
Pages taking longer than 2.5 seconds
Pages taking longer than 4 seconds
CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) issues:
Pages with a score higher than 0.1
Pages with a score higher than 0.25
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) issues:
Pages taking longer than 200 milliseconds
Pages taking longer than 500 milliseconds

Developers often need more than these metrics—they want a full list of all URLs with low scores.

While Google provides sample URLs, it’s not exhaustive.

To get more comprehensive data, use the Google Search Console API to retrieve additional URL examples.

Tips for Regular Monitoring:

Include these metrics in the regular reports to developers.
The historical charts in Google Search Console are useful for spotting trends, but they don’t provide long-term data. To keep a full record, export the data into a spreadsheet and create the own charts.

Capturing screenshots of charts may also help to track day-to-day fluctuations that are not reflected in the spreadsheet.

Desktop Core Web Vitals Metrics

These metrics work in the same way as mobile, but most of the focus should be on mobile Core Web Vitals, as mobile performance is usually prioritized.

However, it’s still important to monitor desktop metrics and look for correlations between improvements in desktop and declines in mobile performance.

This can help developers identify why mobile metrics might worsen even as desktop performance improves.

Key Desktop Metrics to Monitor:

Good URLs (Desktop)
Poor URLs (Desktop)
Needs Improvement URLs (Desktop)

Common Desktop Issues:

LCP issues: Pages taking longer than 2.5 seconds
CLS issues: Pages with a score higher than 0.1 or 0.25
INP issues: Pages taking longer than 200 or 500 milliseconds

While desktop issues aren’t always a top priority, especially for mobile-first sites, B2B enterprise clients may require a closer look at these metrics, especially if their audience is more desktop-oriented.

Rich Results with Schema Markup

Adding Schema markup to the site enables special features in search results, such as breadcrumb links, product details, and more.

View the performance of these enhancements in Google Search Console under the “Enhancements” section.

The types of enhancements tracked vary based on the site setup, but some common ones include:

Breadcrumbs
FAQs
Review Snippets
Videos
Un parsable Structured Data
Product Snippets
Merchant Listings

Each report shows the number of valid and invalid URLs, along with any issues that need attention.

Being familiar with the key Google Search Console metrics, be sure to monitor them regularly.

A monthly check works best.

Also, remember to store these metrics in a spreadsheet to retain historical data beyond what Google Search Console offers.