Google’s new version of Search Console has graduated to a fully fledged release today after being in beta since the start of the year. Google first announced the upgrade to Search Console in August last year and after a limited rollout to a preselected group of users, a widespread beta release of the new toolset followed shortly after in January 2018.
Users logging on will notice that the “beta” tag has been dropped from the end of the Google Search Console header. It is worth noting, however, that not all of the tools available in the original version are implemented in the upgrade. For that reason, the old version is still available via a link in the sidebar should you need to access it.
So What’s New?
Google states that it has rebuilt Search Console from the ground up focusing on the implementation of feedback it has amassed over its years of operation. Below are a few key features of the new and improved interface:
- Search Performance Report is an upgrade to the Search Analytics feature offering rich insights and over 16 months of data to aid in analysing longer term and multi-year trends. There are also plans to implement this as part of the search console api.
- Updated Index Coverage Report allows webmasters to gain important information on how URL’s are indexed for their site, including errors if any URL’s happen to be indexed incorrectly. Clicking on these errors will allow you to view the reasons why there is a problem and also run a diagnostic tool to help you solve the problem.
- AMP Report allows you to view issues with website listings that contain AMP. Listing a summary and more detailed instructions relating to warnings and errors and how to resolve them.
As well as the above there is also an overhaul to the UX and improved Job Posting pages and two newly upgraded features live as of launch:
- Manual Actions Report shows active manual actions and security issues on the overview page
- URL Inspection Tool has been given live mode, which allows you to use the tool whilst the webpage is live.
Still a Work in Progress
Despite the full release going live today, Google has been keen to stress that this is still a work in progress and wants users to continue to provide feedback on the features they would like to see implemented in the new tool. John Mueller, Webmaster Trends Analyst at Google, in response to a user asking about some of the old features that are missing, tweeted “We’re not done yet” along with a link to some of the new tools mentioned above. This suggests continued migration of the old Search Console is ongoing and we should expect to see the old features ported across to the new tool in due course.
