So Google’s John Mueller has announced that the old search console will come to an end in March tabling the changes to be expected. Like anything new it will take some time to get used to how issues are reported. A limited version of the new console is already in place, with links to go between the two.
A key part of any SEO Strategy is to ensure regular audits take place, identifying anything that could affect the websites visibility on SERPS. Sometimes known as Technical SEO, the specialist would see the search console as a primary source of data, which is why these changes in March are a big deal.
Its Not All New
Certain changes have already been in place for a while now. The Search Console analytics function (not to be confused with Google analytics a separate platform) has already moved and for me has been a success, especially showing what search terms certain pages of my websites have other been found and click through, or where a search impression has been made. Understanding the Click Through Rates for each country, has been invaluable to at least one of my websites visibility. Whist in the old console, you are prompted top use the new version for analytics.
There are newer options already live within the search console. Each one of these option would earn an article of its own, but waiting to March to see any further developments are probably in order to report it correctly. Examples are below
- Overview
- Performance
- URL Inspection
Backlinks are also presented within the new console, but it is obviously not showing the level of backlinks it was in the old console and even this reported much less than year before.
Mobile Usability is presented differently, but pretty similar than before.
So What Features Are Going?
The HTML suggestions feature is to go. To be honest I rarely had data within this option, so no sleep lost over that.
Android apps is something I never used, so again it could be worse.
One of the features I will miss is the ability to remove the listings of crawl errors by bulk. What I mean by this, is there were times when a full directory or many pages were removed for good reason. These would ultimately appear as a crawl error as the cached pages still contained links to these pages (the live versions would have been updated). I often see blocks of links that I know have been corrected or understand why they have been removed. With the current system, I can select them all and remove the listings form the search console. So keep it all clean. Up to now, I cannot see a bulk removal of crawl error process within the new console.
You sometimes feel with Google, that innovation takes over from simplicity. Sometimes tools are more complicated to use, to ensure we get the best data to help with the site. I have had to look for some instruction from 3rd party sites for some understanding of breakdowns, where it should be self explanatory. Sure after a while, you learn, but I don’t think the new console will not catch on immediately; there will be many who prefer the old. I would have liked to have both at my fingertips.
