Migration guide for existing users
If you have been using old Search Console, this guide will show you the main differences between old and new Search Console.
General changes
New Search Console has the following improvements over the old version:
- Sixteen months of search traffic data, versus three months in the old product
- Detailed information about a specific page, including index coverage, canonical URL, mobile usability, and more
- Tracking flows to help you monitor, fix, and request a recrawl of pages affected by crawling issues.
- New and improved reports and tools, described next.
- Works on mobile devices.
Comparison of tools and reports
We have created new versions of many reports and tools, and will continue to migrate more. Here is a comparison of the of tools and reports in the old and new new Search Console. This list will change as we continue to add new reports.
We strongly recommend using the newer version of each report, as it becomes available. Old reports with a new equivalent will soon be removed
| Old Search Console report | New Search Console report | Comparison |
|---|---|---|
| – Search Analytics | Performance | New report has 16 months’ of data and is much easier to use. |
| – Rich Cards | Individual Enhancement reports | New reports provide detailed debugging information, and a one-click request to recrawl fixed issues. |
| – Links to your Site – Internal links |
Links | New report combines both Links to your Site and Internal Links report, with more reliable link count numbers. |
| – Indexstatus | Index Coverage Status | New report provides all the information of the old report, plus detailed crawl status information from the Google Index. |
| – Sitemaps report | new Sitemaps | Similar information, but better-designed report. The old report supports testing a sitemap without submitting it; the new report tests only upon submission. |
| – Accelerated Mobile Pages | AMP Status | Many more error types reported in the new report, plus a fix flow to request reindexing of fixed pages. |
| – Manual Actions | new Manual Actions | The new report shows your manual action history, including review requests and results. |
| – Fetch as Google | URL Inspection tool | The URL Inspection tool shows information about the indexed and live versions of a URL, with the ability to request a crawl. New information includes the URL of the canonical page, any noindex/nocrawl blocks, and whether or not the URL is in the Google index. |
| – Mobile Usability | Mobile Usability | Similar information, but in a more usable format. Also provides a fix flow to request reindexing of pages with fixed mobile usability issues. |
| No equivalent | URL Inspection | Provides detailed information about your pages in the Google index, including the status in the index (present or absent), last crawled time, the canonical URL, noindex/robots.txt blockages, and more. The tool also enables testing a live page to see whether it is eligible for crawling. |
Don’t submit the same data twice – Data and requests are shared between old and new Search Console, no need to submit them in both. For example, if you submitted a reconsideration request or a sitemap in old Search Console, you don’t need to submit it again in the new Search Console.
New ways to perform old tasks
Some common task steps have changed in new Search Console. Here is a summary of the most common:
- Add a new property: Read the new property flow. All properties are now listed in the dropdown list in the navigation bar in every page. You can remove a property from the list to stop receiving notifications about it.
- Change properties: Use the property selector dropdown in the navigation section of the document.
- Check for robots.txt or noindex: Use the URL Inspection tool to inspect robots.txt and noindex status for an indexed or live version of a page.
- Test Googlebot’s ability to fetch a page: Use the URL Inspection tool to run a live test of the page.
- Upload a sitemap: Use the new Sitemaps report to upload sitemaps. Uploaded sitemaps will be tested immediately.
- Debug rich results: Use the Individual Enhancement reports visible in the status page.
- Look for site-level indexing errors: Use the Index Coverage Status report to view indexing stats at the site level.
- Look for page-level index errors: Use the new URL Inspection tool to learn detailed crawling issues for a specific page.
- Request a page crawl: Inspect the live page using the new URL Inspection tool and request a recrawl.
- Inspect a live page: Using the new URL Inspection tool.
- Read site clicks, impressions, and CTR (Search Analytics): Use the equivalent Performance Report.
- Users and permissions and verification detailsare still accessible through the settings icon
Currently unsupported features
Here are some features that aren’t yet supported in new Search Console. To use them you will have to use the old Search Console, for now.
- Crawl Stats data (pages crawled per day, KB downloaded per day, page download times)
- Robots.txt tester
- Managing URL parameters in Google Search
- International targeting (managing hreflang tags or setting a preferred target country)
- Data highlighter tool
- HTML improvements
- Reading and managing your messages
- Change of address tool
- Setting preferred domain
- Associating your Search Console property with an Analytics property
- Disavow links
- Removing outdated content from the index
- Property sets are not yet supported
- Blocked resources report
- Security Issues report
- Structured data report
