Google Search Console, explained
Google Search Console is a free service from Google that shows how a website appears in Google Search. Once a site owner verifies the property, it reports the searches the site appears for, impressions, clicks, click-through rate and average position, by page, query, country and device. It is the closest thing to Google's own view of a site.
It is also the main diagnostic tool for technical SEO. The indexing reports show which pages are indexed and why others are excluded; the URL inspection tool shows how Google sees a single page; and further reports cover Core Web Vitals, structured data, sitemaps, security issues and manual actions. Bing Webmaster Tools offers a similar view for Bing, which also feeds some AI assistants.
Search Console pairs naturally with an analytics tool such as GA4. Search Console shows what happens before the click; analytics and conversion tracking show what visitors do after it, such as calls, forms and bookings. Together they connect searches to inquiries, which is the measure that matters. Search Console does not report on AI assistants; that takes prompt sampling.