Search Console shows no data: what to check, and how long to wait

Search Console shows nothing until your property is verified and Google has crawled at least one URL. Performance data lags by about two days.

• New site: discovery and indexing take from days to a few weeks. There is no promise on timing.
• New property on an existing site: once verified, you will see up to 16 months of historic data that Google already had, subject to the two day lag.
• Clicks come after impressions. Impressions appear once a page is eligible to show for a query a user loads.

If the property is new and you see empty reports, first confirm that Google knows your URLs. Work from public search to Search Console detail.

1. 1

   Search site:yourproduct.com

   If you see none of your pages, Google likely has not indexed yet. If you see some, indexing is in progress.

2. 2

   Open the Page indexing report

   In Search Console, see how many pages are indexed or excluded. If the report itself is empty, Google has not processed the property yet.

3. 3

   Use URL Inspection on / and one key page

   Enter https://yourproduct.com/ and https://yourproduct.com/pricing. If not indexed, Request indexing for each. This asks for a crawl of one URL.

4. 4

   Submit a sitemap

   Add https://yourproduct.com/sitemap.xml in the Sitemaps report. This speeds discovery of all URLs you list.

5. 5

   Link to your site from somewhere public

   A real link from a page Google already knows helps discovery. Your GitHub repo, a profile, or a partner’s page works. Avoid spammy links.

A fixed case looks like this: URL Inspection shows Crawled, currently not indexed, then flips to Indexed after a few days. The Performance report starts to show impressions two days later.

Wrong property type is the classic reason for an empty Performance report. Domain and URL prefix see different scopes. Protocol and subdomain matter.

• Domain property yourproduct.com covers all protocols and subdomains: http, https, www, app, blog.
• URL prefix https://yourproduct.com/ covers only that exact prefix. It excludes http://, www.yourproduct.com and any other host.
• If your site serves on https://www.yourproduct.com/, verifying only https://yourproduct.com/ leaves reports empty for your traffic.

1. 1

   Check the property selector

   Top left in Search Console, pick the property that matches your live URLs exactly. Test live URLs in the URL Inspection tool to confirm which property they belong to.

2. 2

   Prefer a Domain property

   Verify a Domain property to avoid missing data from a www or a subdomain migration later.

A fixed case looks like this: after switching to the Domain property, Performance data appears for /pricing and /blog/ posts that were missing before.

Search Console data is not live. Expect about a two day delay on the Performance report. The Indexing reports can lag as well.

• A new property on a mature site will backfill historic data for up to 16 months, after the initial processing completes.
• If you see nothing for the last two days but see older data, you are just ahead of the refresh. Check again tomorrow.
• If the Performance graph shows a flat line at zero for all time ranges, you likely have no impressions yet or are on the wrong property.

A fixed case looks like this: you verify on Monday, see data through Saturday, and Tuesday morning shows Sunday’s data with the backfill continuing over the day.

Blank Performance data can be correct. If no one has seen a link to your pages in Google yet, impressions are zero. Clicks cannot exist without impressions.

• Public pages must be crawlable, indexable, and linked from somewhere Google knows. There is no fee and no submission needed to appear.
• A brand new domain with no links can be slow to be discovered. Internal links help Google find deeper pages once it reaches your site.
• Thin or duplicate content may be crawled but not indexed. Not every crawled page is stored in the index.

1. 1

   Ship a crawlable homepage and one useful page

   For example, / and /guides/getting-started with clear HTML links between them, a title, and unique text that answers a real query.

2. 2

   Publish a sitemap and link to it in robots.txt

   Robots.txt at /robots.txt with a Sitemap: https://yourproduct.com/sitemap.xml line helps discovery.

3. 3

   Get one real external link

   From your project profile or a partner’s blog. It gives Googlebot a path to your domain.

A fixed case looks like this: two days after the first link lands, the Performance report shows a few impressions for “yourproduct” and “yourproduct pricing”.

An active filter will make a healthy property look empty. Clear filters before you assume there is no data.

• Date range: set Last 28 days. If you are on Today or Yesterday, the two day lag will show zeros.
• Search type: use Web. Discover and News often show nothing for a small site.
• Country: clear any country filter unless you target only one.
• Page or query filter: remove any exact URL or query filter that might exclude current data. Regex filters can hide most rows if written narrowly.
• Compare mode: comparisons can show flat lines if one side has no data. Switch to single range to sanity check.
• Search appearance: clear it unless you know you have a specific feature.

Also check you are in the Performance report for Search results, not in Discover or News. In the left nav, pick Search results explicitly.

A fixed case looks like this: clearing a country filter reveals impressions and clicks for /pricing across multiple markets.

A staging flag shipped to production can stop indexing. Check robots.txt, meta robots and canonical tags on your key pages. Then read the Indexing report for status at scale.

1. 1

   Robots.txt

   Open https://yourproduct.com/robots.txt. Look for Disallow: /. Remove it for production. Keep only paths you truly wish to block from crawling.

2. 2

   Meta robots and X-Robots-Tag

   View source on /. Ensure there is no noindex. For files, check headers for an X-Robots-Tag noindex.

3. 3

   Canonical tags

   On /pricing, ensure the link rel=canonical points to the correct URL. A wrong canonical can exclude the page from the index.

4. 4

   Read the Page indexing report

   If you see Alternate page with proper canonical tag, Google agreed with your canonical and excluded this URL on purpose. Fix it only if the canonical target is wrong.

A fixed case looks like this: removing a noindex from the template, requesting indexing on / and /pricing, then seeing Indexed in URL Inspection and first impressions two days later.

Do not expect clicks on day one. Expect a trickle of impressions on brand queries and easy long tails, and an average position that looks rough at first.

• Impressions: counted when a link to your page appears on a results page a user loaded. For web search, it counts whether or not the user scrolled to it.
• Position: the position of the highest link to your site on that page. Average position is the mean over impressions, so it can be 8 while showing at 3 and at 40 on different queries.
• CTR: clicks divided by impressions. With few impressions, CTR will be noisy.
• Query list: rare and anonymised queries are omitted, so the query table will not sum to the site total.
• Date view: default is last 28 days. The comparison is the previous 28 days.

A healthy first week looks like this: a handful of impressions on “yourproduct”, a few for “yourproduct pricing”, average position moving closer to page one as Google tests your pages.

Empty and dropped are different. If you saw data before and now see a fall, treat it as a traffic change, not a reporting fault.

1. 1

   Compare dates in Performance

   Last 28 days versus the 28 before. Split by page and by query to see where the change sits.

2. 2

   Check Google’s Search Status Dashboard dates

   If a core or spam update landed, expect movement. Read the guidance before changing pages.

3. 3

   Open Manual actions and Security issues

   If present, fix those first. They affect serving.

4. 4

   Check your deploy history

   Look for a noindex, a robots change, a redirect, or a canonical change on the dates the lines moved.

5. 5

   Search the results page

   Incognito in the right country for key queries. See if a new rival or feature pushed links down.

A fixed case looks like this: you remove an accidental noindex from /docs/, request indexing, and the page regains impressions over the next few days.

• Verify a Domain property for your root domain.
• Add all key roles as verified owners or full users so your team can work. Keep account recovery safe.
• Submit your sitemap URL in the Sitemaps report. Keep it updated from your build.
• Link from your homepage to your core pages: /pricing, /signup, /guides/getting-started.
• Ship basic technicals: HTTPS, one canonical per page, a unique title, and mobile friendly layouts.
• Use URL Inspection to request indexing for your homepage and a few key URLs.