How to Understand the Data in Google Search Console (Without Losing Your Mind)

If you’ve ever opened up Google Search Console (GSC) and immediately felt overwhelmed by the charts, filters, and confusing terms, you’re not alone. It’s one of the most powerful free SEO tools out there, but it’s also super easy to misread the data.

BTW, if you still haven’t set up your free account, here’s how to get started in GSC.

I made this video walking through the basics, but if you’re more of a reader, this post will help you break it all down. We’ll go through the metrics that confuse people the most (impressions, click-through rate, average position, and indexing) and help you actually make sense of what you’re seeing. I’m going to answer the most common questions and misconceptions I see that people have about GSC.

Quick visual overview of how to use GSC.

What does “Impressions” mean in Google Search Console?

This one trips up a lot of people. An “impression” doesn’t mean someone saw your site and considered clicking. It just means your page appeared somewhere in the search results, even if that was on page 8.

So if you’re seeing thousands of impressions and almost no clicks, that doesn’t mean your content is bad, it might just mean your page is showing up low in the rankings.

Example: One of my pages shows up for over 70 different keywords (including “a week in seattle”, “one week in seattle” and “seattle trip itinerary”. Notice they are all variations of the same topic, yet considered different keywords.) Some of them rank in the top 5, but others are buried in positions 60–90. Still, every time it shows up (even way down in the SERPs), that counts as an impression.

Why am I getting high impressions but barely any clicks?

This usually means one of four things:

1. You’re ranking for a lot of keywords, but some of them are low-ranked (or could be irrelevant).

2. You’re ranking low for keywords with high search volume, so you’re getting seen (kind of), but not clicked.

3. Your titles or meta descriptions might not be enticing enough for people to click when you do appear in decent positions.

4. You’re ranking for queries that are getting answered in AI Overviews.
   
   Take a look at your queries report in GSC and sort by impressions. Ask yourself: “Would I click on this if I saw it in search results?” Also consider if you’re showing up for search terms that don’t actually match what your page offers.

Why is my click-through rate (CTR) so low?

This is where the confusion around impressions really messes with CTR. When your page gets tons of impressions from low-ranking placements, your CTR is going to look super low, even if you’re getting a decent number of clicks from higher-ranked queries.

Don’t panic. Low CTR doesn’t always mean your SEO is failing. It might just mean your content is appearing in more places. That’s actually a good sign. You’re showing up!

Instead of stressing about overall CTR, look at individual pages or queries with solid rankings (positions 1–10). That’s where improving CTR will make the biggest difference.

What does “Average Position” actually mean?

This one is tricky. Google Search Console averages your rankings across all keywords your page ranks for. So if one page ranks #2 for one keyword and #98 for another, the average is going to land somewhere in the middle, making your page ranking look worse than it actually is.

That’s why you might see an “average position” of 23 and still see yourself ranking on the first page for your target keyword.

Tip: Always drill down into individual queries to get the real picture.

How can I see what my site is actually ranking for?

Go to:

• Performance → Search Results

• Use the filters to look at individual pages or queries

• Sort by impressions or clicks to see what’s really going on
  

This view helps you understand what terms are driving your traffic and where you might be ranking lower than expected.

What does normal growth look like for a new website?

New websites often start with a slow climb in impressions, followed by clicks catching up later. This is totally normal. I’ve seen new sites take months to get even a trickle of traffic.

So if your impressions are growing but your clicks aren’t there yet, you’re on the right path. Keep publishing high-quality, useful content. And keep optimizing. The clicks will come if your content is good.

Why aren’t my pages showing up in search results?

Your page may not be indexed. If your pages aren’t indexed, they won’t show up in Google’s search results at all. You can check if a page is indexed by going to the URL Inspection tool in Search Console and pasting in your URL.

If it says “URL is not on Google,” here’s what I usually tell people:

Indexing can be so frustrating sometimes! But one thing to know is that it takes time. Pages on brand new sites can sometimes take months to index. On that page, you can request indexing. Check back in a few days to see if it has crawled your site. If not, you may be lacking in authority in your website or your content might not be worth indexing in the bots eyes. To build authority of your site, work on building up some quality backlinks.

What can I do if my pages aren’t getting indexed?

Here are a few things to check if your pages aren’t being picked up by Google:

1. Blocked - Are you accidentally blocking the pages with a noindex tag or robots.txt file?

2. Content qualilty - Is your content thin or duplicated elsewhere? 

3. Page depth - Are these pages more than 3 clicks from your homepage?

4. Crawl budget - Are you blocking unnecessary pages with robots.txt? Is your sitemap too bloated?

5. Internal links - Are you linking to these pages from other pages outside of your nav menu?

6. Related content - Do you have enough other content to support this topic?

7. Backlinks - Do any other websites link to these pages?

8. Content quality - Is your content useful, original, and well-structured?

9. Crawl requests - When was your sitemap last crawled? Were these pages created afterward?
   

If everything looks good and it’s just a waiting game, hang in there. It’s super common for indexing to be slow on new sites while they build authority. I’ve had pages that took 4–5 months to index, and they eventually started pulling in traffic. Work on getting other good sites to link to your pages.

Final Thoughts

Google Search Console is incredibly helpful once you know what you’re looking at. But it can also be misleading if you don’t understand how impressions, CTR, and ranking are calculated.

If you’re seeing impressions grow, even without clicks yet, celebrate that! It’s the first sign your site is getting noticed by Google.

And if you want help interpreting your GSC data or building an SEO strategy that actually gets clicks, let’s work together. I offer full SEO audits and ongoing support to help you make sense of your data and turn it into growth.