20 Google Search Console Interview Questions and Answers

Google Search Console is a powerful tool that allows webmasters to track their website’s performance in Google search results. It provides valuable insights that can help you improve your website’s ranking and visibility. If you’re interviewing for a position that involves working with Google Search Console, you should be prepared to answer questions about your experience and knowledge of the tool. In this article, we’ll review some common Google Search Console interview questions and provide tips on how to answer them.

Google Search Console Interview Questions and Answers

Here are 20 commonly asked Google Search Console interview questions and answers to prepare you for your interview:

1. What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free service offered by Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website’s presence in Google Search results. You can use Search Console to submit and test your sitemaps, submit new content to Google, and even to check the performance of your website in Google Search.

2. How can you use the Performance Report in GSC to improve your site’s ranking and visibility?

The Performance Report in GSC provides data on how your site is performing in Google search results. You can use this data to improve your site’s ranking by making changes to your site based on the data. You can also use this data to improve your site’s visibility by creating more content that is relevant to the keywords that people are searching for.

3. Can you explain what a sitemap is in context with Google Search Console?

A sitemap is a file that contains a list of all the pages on your website. This file is then submitted to Google Search Console in order to help Google index your website more effectively.

4. How do you add a URL or Sitemap to GSC?

You can add a URL to GSC by going to the “Crawl” tab, then selecting “URLs”, and finally “Add/Test Sitemap”. From there, you can either add a single URL or a sitemap.

5. What are some common issues that can impact a website’s performance on search engines?

Some common issues that can impact a website’s performance on search engines include things like poor website design, duplicate content, and keyword stuffing.

6. What does the Coverage Report tell us about our site?

The Coverage Report in Google Search Console provides information on how well Google is able to crawl and index your website. It will show you any errors that Google encountered while trying to crawl your site, as well as which pages on your site are being indexed and which are not. This report can be very helpful in troubleshooting any issues that you may be having with your website’s visibility in Google search results.

7. What is the importance of the AMP report in Google Search Console?

The AMP report is important because it allows you to see how your AMP pages are performing in Google search results. It also provides insights into any errors that may be occurring on your AMP pages.

8. What are some common configuration errors seen in GSC?

One common error is when the website is not properly associated with a Google Search Console account. This can happen if the website is set up with an incorrect DNS record, or if the website is not verified with Google. Another common error is when the website is not configured to use the correct version of HTTPS. This can happen if the website is using an outdated SSL certificate, or if the website is not redirecting HTTP traffic to HTTPS.

9. Is it necessary for my website to be indexed by Google before I submit its sitemap via Google Search Console?

No, it is not necessary for your website to be indexed by Google before you submit its sitemap. You can submit your sitemap to Google Search Console regardless of whether your website has been indexed or not.

10. What actions should we take if we see a large number of not found (404) URLs in GSC?

If you see a large number of not found (404) URLs in GSC, you should check to see if there are any broken links on your website. If there are, you should fix them as soon as possible. You can also use the Fetch as Google tool to request Google to crawl your website and update its index.

11. Why would you want to disable indexing of certain pages on your site?

There are a few reasons why you might want to disable indexing of certain pages on your site. One reason could be that the pages in question are still in development and not ready to be made public. Another reason could be that the pages in question contain sensitive information that you only want to be accessible to certain users. Disabling indexing can help to prevent search engines from accidentally indexing these pages and making them public.

12. What information do you get from the robots.txt file?

The robots.txt file is a text file that tells Googlebot and other web crawlers which pages on your website to index and which pages to ignore. This file is important because it helps you control which pages show up in search results, and it can also help prevent your website from being overloaded with too much traffic.

13. Can you explain how crawl rate limits work in GSC?

Crawl rate limits in GSC work by limiting the number of pages that Googlebot can crawl on your website in a given day. This limit is in place to prevent Googlebot from overloading your server and causing problems. If you start to see a lot of errors in your GSC account, it may be because you have hit your crawl rate limit.

14. What are the different types of structured data supported by GSC?

Google Search Console supports a variety of different types of structured data, including but not limited to: articles, events, local businesses, products, and recipes.

15. Can you give me an example where using structured data has helped boost a page’s ranking in search results?

There are a few examples where using structured data has helped boost a page’s ranking in search results. One example is when a page has been marked up with schema.org code, which helps search engines understand the page’s content. This can result in the page being displayed more prominently in search results, as well as getting more clicks. Another example is when a page has been marked up with AMP code, which can help the page load faster and be more mobile-friendly. This can also result in the page being displayed more prominently in search results.

16. What are some ways to debug JavaScript errors in GSC?

There are a few ways that you can debug JavaScript errors in Google Search Console. One way is to use the “Network” tab in the Chrome Developer Tools. This will allow you to see all of the network requests that are being made, and you can look for any errors that are being returned.

Another way to debug JavaScript errors is to use the “Console” tab in the Chrome Developer Tools. This will give you a log of all the JavaScript errors that have occurred on the page.

Finally, you can also use the “Google Search Console” itself to look for JavaScript errors. In the “Diagnostics” section, there is an option to “Test JavaScript”. This will run a test on your page and report any errors that it finds.

17. What are some of the differences between the old and new versions of GSC?

The new version of GSC has a lot more features and options than the old version. For example, the new version lets you see more data about your website’s traffic, including what keywords people are using to find your site and where your traffic is coming from. You can also use the new version to submit your sitemap and manage your website’s crawl rate.

18. How does Google Search Console help you identify duplicate content issues?

Google Search Console can help you identify duplicate content issues in a few different ways. First, the “Coverage” report can show you which pages on your site are being indexed by Google and which are not. If you see that some of your pages are not being indexed, that may be an indication that Google is seeing them as duplicate content. Second, the “Search Analytics” report can show you which queries are bringing people to your site, and how often your pages are appearing in the search results. If you see that your pages are appearing less often than you expect, that may also be an indication of duplicate content.

19. How can you verify ownership of a domain in GSC?

You can verify ownership of a domain in GSC by adding a DNS record to your domain’s DNS configuration.

20. When should you consider removing a webpage from Google Search?

There are a few reasons why you might want to remove a webpage from Google Search. Maybe the page is outdated and no longer relevant. Maybe the page is duplicative of another page on your website. Or maybe the page contains sensitive information that you don’t want to be publicly accessible. In any case, if you want to remove a webpage from Google Search, you can do so by using the Google Search Console.