This glossary defines Search Console terms according to Google's current documentation. It also separates concepts that sound similar but answer different questions. Definitions were verified on July 18, 2026.
Properties, access, and accounts
Association
A connection between a Search Console property and another Google service, such as Google Analytics. An association is not ownership and does not automatically give users access to both products.
Delegated owner
A user granted owner status by another owner. Unlike a verified owner, a delegated owner did not prove control through their own verification token.
Domain property
A website property that covers a domain across protocols, paths, and all included subdomains. It is written without http://, https://, or a path and normally requires DNS verification.
Full user
A user who can view all report data and take some actions. Full access is still not the same as ownership; some property and user-management actions require an owner.
Platform property
A property for a supported Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube account or channel. It reports how that content performs through Google, not how it performs inside the native platform. Availability is still rolling out gradually.
Property
The website, website scope, platform account, or channel selected in Search Console. Every report is constrained by the selected property's definition and the user's permission.
Restricted user
A user with limited viewing permission. Restricted users cannot perform many actions available to full users or owners.
URL-prefix property
A website property containing only URLs that begin with the exact prefix supplied, including protocol, host, optional port, path, and trailing slash. It supports several verification methods and can isolate a directory.
Verification token
Evidence used to prove ownership, such as a DNS record, HTML file, or meta tag. Removing a verified owner from Search Console without removing their token can allow them to verify again.
Verified owner
A user who proved control with a verification method recognized by Search Console. Verified and delegated owners have similar product permissions but different ownership evidence.
Discovery, crawling, and indexing
Canonical URL
The representative URL Google chooses for a group of duplicate or substantially similar pages. Most Search performance is attributed to Google's selected canonical.
Crawl
Googlebot requesting a URL or resource. A successful crawl does not guarantee indexing, ranking, or inclusion in a particular Search feature.
Crawl request
One request counted in Crawl Stats. Repeated requests for the same URL are counted separately; the report is request-based, not a count of unique URLs.
Discovery
Google learning that a URL exists, often through a link or sitemap. “Discovered – currently not indexed” means Google knows the URL but has not yet crawled it for indexing.
Google-selected canonical
The canonical URL chosen by Google's systems. It can differ from the canonical declared by the site owner.
Index / indexing
Google processing and storing information about a page so that it can be eligible to appear in Search. Indexing is necessary for ordinary web-result eligibility but does not guarantee visibility or traffic.
Indexed version
The evidence in URL Inspection from Google's last indexed processing of the URL. It can lag behind the current live page.
Live test
A URL Inspection fetch performed on demand against the current page. It tests current access and some indexability conditions, but it does not determine whether the page is indexed or reproduce Google's canonical selection.
Page Indexing report
The report that groups URLs known to Google into indexed and non-indexed reasons. Its headline totals are comprehensive within the report's scope, while example URL lists remain limited.
Request indexing
An individual URL submission through URL Inspection after a live test. It places the URL in a crawl queue; it is not a promise of immediate crawling or indexing.
Sitemap
A file that supplies canonical URL candidates and optional metadata to search engines. Submission helps discovery and monitoring but does not guarantee crawling or indexing.
User-declared canonical
The canonical URL indicated by the site, typically with rel="canonical". Google treats it as a signal rather than an absolute directive.
URL Inspection
The report and API service for Google's indexed evidence about one exact URL. The UI can also run a live test; the public API returns indexed status and does not run the live test.
Performance metrics
Average CTR
Clicks divided by impressions. It is meaningful only for a defined scope and is strongly affected by position, query intent, device, country, and result presentation.
Average position
The mean position of the topmost result for the selected aggregation. It is not a fixed universal ranking because searches, devices, locations, result layouts, and aggregation vary.
Click
A supported interaction that sends a user from a Google result to the property. Counting rules vary by result type, and one click is not necessarily one analytics session.
Impression
A counted appearance of a link or content item in a supported Google surface. Whether it must be scrolled into view depends on the surface and result type.
Position
The relative placement of the topmost result from the property or selected page grouping. Composite search features and page-level versus property-level aggregation affect how it is calculated.
Performance dimensions and controls
Comparison
A report view that contrasts two dates or two values from one supported dimension. A comparison does not control for seasonality, releases, or different query mixes by itself.
Country
The country from which the search originated, as estimated by Google. It is not a hreflang validation result or necessarily the user's nationality.
Device
The device category used for the search: desktop, mobile, or tablet.
Dimension
A category used to group or filter metrics, such as query, page, country, device, date, or search appearance.
Filter
A condition restricting the report to selected data. Multiple filters normally combine with AND logic. Query filters remove anonymized queries from the filtered total.
Metric
A numeric measurement such as clicks, impressions, CTR, or average position.
Page dimension
Performance grouped by the final linked URL after redirects and normally credited to Google's canonical. Selecting Pages changes table aggregation from property to page.
Query
The search text associated with the property's appearance. Search Console hides some rare or sensitive queries and stores only top rows, so the table is not a complete keyword inventory.
Anonymized query
A query omitted to protect user privacy. Its metrics can remain in unfiltered chart totals, but the query text and row are not exposed.
Search appearance
A Performance dimension describing a specific result feature, such as merchant listings, product snippets, or videos. It is not the same as search type. Available values depend on the property and change as Google launches or retires features.
Search type
The result surface selected for a Performance request, such as Web, Image, Video, or News-tab Search. Discover and Google News use separate Performance types/reports.
Aggregation and data quality
Canonical attribution
The practice of assigning most metrics from duplicate URLs to Google's selected canonical rather than necessarily to the URL the user opened.
Page-level aggregation
Counting each qualifying canonical page separately. The Pages and Search appearance tables use page aggregation and can sum differently from the chart.
Property-level aggregation
Combining results that point to the same property for one search. The Performance chart normally uses property aggregation and counts the topmost property position.
Preliminary data
Recent Performance data still being collected and subject to change. It is shown with a dotted chart line and is prominent in the 24-hour view.
Final data
Performance data no longer marked preliminary. “Final” means Google's normal processing is complete; it does not make row-limited or privacy-filtered data exhaustive.
Representative example
A URL or item shown to illustrate a report group or issue. Absence from an examples table does not prove the URL was unaffected.
Top rows / data truncation
Search Console retaining or returning the most significant rows rather than every dimension combination. UI tables generally expose at most 1,000 rows.
Reports, features, and actions
Core Web Vitals
LCP, INP, and CLS field metrics reported from Chrome User Experience Report data. Search Console groups similar URLs and requires sufficient real-user data.
CrUX
The Chrome User Experience Report, the field-data source behind Search Console's Core Web Vitals report. It is different from a single Lighthouse laboratory test.
Enhancement / rich-result report
A report for structured data tied to a currently supported Google Search feature. Its examples are not a comprehensive inventory of all markup or affected URLs.
Fix validation
A request for Google to check examples of a reported issue after the underlying site fix has been deployed. Validation does not directly edit the site or guarantee ranking changes.
Manual action
A penalty applied after human review finds a violation of Google's spam policies. It is different from an algorithmic ranking change and is reported in the Manual Actions report.
Security issue
A detected condition such as hacked content, malware, or deceptive pages that can harm users. Security remediation and a review request are separate from manual-action reconsideration.
Structured data
Machine-readable markup describing page entities and content. Valid structured data can establish eligibility for supported features but does not guarantee a rich result.
24-hour view
A Performance view showing the latest available 24 hours with hourly, preliminary data in the browser's local time zone. Normal date ranges use Pacific Time.
Data access
BigQuery bulk export
A scheduled daily export of Search Console Performance data. It is the most complete performance extraction available, except that anonymized queries remain excluded. Google Cloud storage and query costs apply.
Search Analytics API
The API method for querying Performance data with dates, dimensions, filters, aggregation, and data-state controls. It exposes bounded top rows rather than a complete warehouse export.
Search Console API
The public API family containing Search Analytics, Sites, Sitemaps, and URL Inspection services. It does not expose every report or UI action.
Commonly confused pairs
| Do not confuse | Difference |
|---|---|
| Property vs account | A Google account can access many properties; every report request is scoped to one property. |
| Search type vs search appearance | Search type selects the surface; search appearance describes a result feature within supported performance data. |
| Indexed version vs live test | Indexed evidence is historical Google processing; a live test is a current on-demand fetch. |
| Discovered vs crawled | Discovery means Google knows the URL; crawling means Google requested it. |
| Crawled vs indexed | Google can fetch a URL and still decide not to index it. |
| Indexed vs ranking | An indexed page is eligible, not guaranteed to appear for a particular query. |
| User-declared vs Google-selected canonical | The site proposes; Google selects. |
| Rich-result validity vs appearance | Valid markup provides eligibility, not a display guarantee. |
| Click vs session | Products count different events with different scope, attribution, and time zones. |
| Sample URLs vs full inventory | Most example tables illustrate a pattern and cannot prove completeness. |
Related references
- Clicks, impressions, CTR & position
- Data limits, hidden queries & missing rows
- Canonical URL data attribution
- Report completeness & row limits
- API endpoints & quota reference