Google Search Console, step by step

See the words buyers already use

Chapter 2, the roadmap

1. Open Search Console and pick your property.
2. Go to Performance, then Search results. Set the date range to the last 3 months.
3. Open the Queries tab. These are the phrases people typed before your site appeared. Sort by impressions to see demand, not just clicks.
4. Export (top right) to a spreadsheet and tag each query as early (what is this), middle (which option, what does it cost) or late (who do I trust, near me, buy).

For phrasing you do not rank for yet, search your main category term in a private window and read Google's autocomplete, the People also ask box and Related searches. Your sales and support team hear the rest.

Direct link: thesourceframework.com/how/buyer-words

Find missing, buried and competing pages

Chapter 2, the roadmap

1. In Performance, click one high-intent query. The whole report now filters to it.
2. Open the Pages tab. It lists every page of yours that showed for that query.
3. Competing: two or more of your pages share the impressions. Pick one to own the query and point the other at it with a link or a merge.
4. Buried: your best page averages below position 20. It exists but nobody sees it: strengthen it before writing anything new.
5. Missing: a buyer question from your list, your sales team or People also ask has no page at all. That is your build list, highest-intent first.

Direct link: thesourceframework.com/how/missing-pages

Branded clicks and the brand ratio

Chapters 7 and 11

1. In Performance, click the filter bar, choose Query, then Branded. Google sorts branded from non-branded queries itself, so misspellings and your product names are included.
2. No Branded option? It only appears on top-level properties with enough search impressions. Use + Add filter, Query, Queries containing and your brand name instead, or Custom (regex) to catch misspellings, for example studiohawk|studio hawk.
3. Note branded clicks and impressions, then remove the filter and note the total clicks for the same dates.
4. Brand ratio = branded clicks divided by total clicks. Compare matching periods (this quarter against the same quarter last year) so seasonality does not fool you.
5. Put the monthly branded clicks beside Direct sessions in Google Analytics. When both rise with no paid brand campaign running, AI is likely putting your name in front of people.

Direct link: thesourceframework.com/how/branded-clicks

Pages Google has not indexed

Chapter 6

1. Go to Indexing, then Pages.
2. Scroll to Why pages aren't indexed. Each row is a reason (for example Excluded by 'noindex' tag or Crawled, currently not indexed) with the affected URLs behind it. A Source of Website means it is yours to fix.
3. For every URL, write keep (it should stay out), fix (it should be indexed) or investigate. Fix staging leftovers first: a stray noindex or robots rule on a money page.

To check a single page fast, Hawk Academy's free Noindex Checker looks in all four places a page can be blocked: the meta robots tag, the X-Robots-Tag header, robots.txt and the canonical.

Direct link: thesourceframework.com/how/page-indexing

Find pages due a refresh

Chapter 9

1. Get each page's last-updated date: most content systems show a last-modified date in the page or post list, or read the lastmod dates in your XML sitemap (often at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml).
2. In Performance, open the Pages tab for the last 3 months and export it for clicks per page.
3. Put the two side by side. Pages not updated in 12 months that still get meaningful clicks are your refresh list: work it busiest first.
4. Check each one section by section. A single stale statistic, price or product name is enough for an AI to take someone else's answer instead.

Direct link: thesourceframework.com/how/refresh-list

How often Googlebot visits (no server logs needed)

Chapter 6

1. Go to Settings (bottom of the left menu), then Crawl stats, then Open report. It is available on top-level properties.
2. Read total crawl requests, download size and response time, then the breakdowns by response, file type, purpose (discovery or refresh) and Googlebot type.
3. Click into the breakdowns for example URLs. Compare them with your ten priority pages: a priority page Googlebot rarely requests is a crawl gap worth an internal link or a sitemap check.

Larger sites with server access can go further with a log file analyser, which records every bot visit rather than a sample.

To find pages that few or no other pages link to, Hawk Academy's free Internal Link Checker scans your sitemap and up to 100 pages and lists orphans and weakly linked pages.

Direct link: thesourceframework.com/how/crawl-stats

Check which canonical Google chose

Chapter 6

1. Paste the page's URL into the URL Inspection bar at the top of Search Console.
2. Open Page indexing. Compare User-declared canonical (what your page says) with Google-selected canonical (what Google decided).
3. If they differ, Google disagrees with your page about which version is the real one. Fix the duplicates, internal links or redirects that are confusing it, then request indexing.

Google's choice shows in the indexed result, not in the live test.

Direct link: thesourceframework.com/how/canonicals

Your impressions in Google's AI features

Chapter 11

Clicks and impressions from AI Overviews and AI Mode are counted inside your normal Performance totals. Search Console now also has a separate Generative AI performance report, listed with the Performance reports, showing your impressions in Google's AI features by page, country, device and date. It shows impressions only, with no query data, so read it beside your prompt library rather than instead of it.

Bing's version: AI Performance

Chapter 11

1. Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools if you have not already. You can import it straight from Search Console.
2. Open the AI Performance report. It shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries, which pages are cited, and the grounding queries that led to them.
3. Check it monthly beside Search Console. It is the closest thing to a citation count any platform gives you for free.

Bing also accepts IndexNow, which tells Bing and other participating engines the moment a page is added or changed. Many SEO plugins switch it on for you. Google does not take part.