# Search Console in the dashboard

> What the dashboard's Search Console section shows, from clicks and rankings to the search footprint, top searches, and pages close to page one.

Source: https://completeseo.com/docs/dashboard/search-console/

The Search Console section shows how your website does in Google search: how often it appears, how often people click, where it ranks, and for which searches. The numbers come from Google Search Console, Google's own report on a site's search results.

Pick the last 30 or 90 days at the top right. Google's search data runs 2 to 3 days behind, so the last few days of any range are empty. That also makes the latest 30 days hold a little less data than the 30 before, which can pull the changes slightly low.

## Clicks, impressions, and position

![Three tiles for clicks, impressions, and average position, each with its change and a small trend line](https://completeseo.com/_astro/sc-tiles.C7pvMiX7.png)

| Tile | Counts |
| --- | --- |
| Clicks | Clicks from Google search results to your site |
| Impressions | Times your site appeared in someone's search results, whether or not they scrolled to it |
| Avg position | Where your site appeared on average, weighted by impressions. 1 is the top result |

Clicks and impressions show their change as a percentage. Position shows the places gained or lost, in green when it moved up. A change appears once there's a full earlier period to compare with.

## Daily performance

The same three numbers, day by day. Use the buttons at the top right of the chart to show or hide each line. Position is off at first, and its scale runs upside down, so a line that rises means a better position.

![A line chart of daily clicks and impressions over 30 days](https://completeseo.com/_astro/sc-daily.BVsMQ8gu.png)

## Search footprint

How many different searches your site shows up for, and how high it ranks for them. It shows whether the site is reaching more searches over time.

![Search footprint card with the number of searches by position band, comparisons with last month and last year, and a 16-month chart](https://completeseo.com/_astro/sc-footprint.I9KQf_3n.png)

- **Searches** counts every search that showed your site at least 10 times in the month.
- **Non-brand** leaves out searches that include your business name. These are the people who didn't already know you.
- **Position** groups the searches by your average ranking for each that month: Top 3, 4 to 10 (the rest of page one), 11 to 20 (page two), and 21 to 100.

The card shows the latest full month and compares it with the month before and the same month last year. When an earlier number is under 50, the change shows as "before → now" instead of a percentage. Switch between the countries your business serves and Worldwide at the top right. A new month appears early in the following month, once Google's data for it is final.

Google doesn't report very rare searches, so the real number of searches you show up for is higher than this count.

## Top queries

The searches that brought the most clicks, from a 28-day snapshot that updates every week, so it doesn't change with the date range. It shows searches with at least 10 impressions, and marks the ones that include your business name with a "brand" tag.

![A table of top search queries with position, impressions, click-through rate, and clicks](https://completeseo.com/_astro/sc-queries.DOuwsWfT.png)

CTR, or click-through rate, is clicks divided by impressions.

## Striking distance

Searches where your site ranks just off the top of the results, at positions 4 to 20, from the same weekly snapshot. These are often the quickest wins, because a small move up can bring a lot more clicks.

![A striking distance table listing queries ranked between positions 4 and 20 with an estimated opportunity in clicks per month](https://completeseo.com/_astro/sc-striking.-IGeFM-y.png)

Opportunity is a rough estimate of the extra clicks a month the search could bring if your site earned about 1 in 10 of its searchers. The list leaves out brand searches and puts the most winnable ones first.

## Top pages

The pages that got the most clicks from Google search in the range you picked, with the change from the period before.

![A table of top pages with clicks, impressions, click-through rate, position, sessions, and conversions](https://completeseo.com/_astro/sc-pages.CTl8B7R1.png)

Sessions and Conv. come from Google Analytics: visits that arrived on that page from unpaid search, and the conversions that followed. Search Console counts searchers from every country, while the Google Analytics columns count the countries your business serves, so the two won't match exactly.

## Why these numbers differ from Search Console

They shouldn't differ by much. The dashboard reads the same Google data for web search, the same view Search Console opens on, and rounds large numbers (1.85k instead of 1,846). Lists of searches never add up to the click total, because Google keeps rare searches out of the lists for privacy while still counting their clicks.