What is Google Console for?
By GEO Search Console Published
Google Console is usually short for Google Search Console, the free Google tool for checking how your site does in Google Search: which searches show it, how many clicks it gets, and whether its pages are indexed.
Google runs other consoles too, so the answer depends on which one you opened. This page is part of our Google Search Console FAQ.
What Google Search Console is for
Google Search Console is for site owners, marketers and developers who want to know how Google sees their site.
It reports the searches your pages appeared for, your clicks and average position, which pages are indexed, and any problem Google found, from broken structured data to a manual action.
It is free, and it is the only place that shows Google's own numbers for your site. Our page on what you can do with Google Search Console walks through its six main jobs.
The other Google consoles
Google Console can also mean one of Google's other admin tools, and each one is for a different job:
| Console | What it is for | Who uses it |
|---|---|---|
| Google Search Console | Search traffic, rankings and indexing in Google Search | Site owners and SEOs |
| Google Cloud console | Cloud servers, storage, databases and APIs | Developers |
| Google Play Console | Publishing Android apps and games on Google Play | App developers |
| Google Admin console | Users, devices and settings in a Google Workspace account | Workspace admins |
If your question is about rankings, indexing or search traffic, Search Console is the one you want.
Which Google console you need for SEO
The Google console you need for SEO is Search Console, and you will touch the Cloud console only if you pull Search Console data through its API.
That route needs a Google Cloud project with the Search Console API turned on, which is how our Search Console data warehouse keeps every day of your data past Google's 16 months.
For Bing, the equivalent tool is Bing Webmaster Tools.