Guide 01

How to Check Your Google Rankings for Free with Search Console

Set up Search Console, open the Performance report and read your positions query by query.

By Tweeted Ranks Team · · 5 min read

You can see where your pages rank in Google without paying for anything. Google Search Console, a free service for site owners, records every time one of your pages shows up in Google Search, what the person searched for and how high your result appeared. This guide walks through setting it up and reading the numbers that matter for rank tracking.

Add and verify your site

Go to Search Console and sign in with a Google account. You will be asked to add a property, which is Google's word for the site or part of a site you want data for. There are two kinds.

A Domain property covers everything on your domain: www and non-www, http and https, and every subdomain. It is verified by adding a TXT record at your DNS provider. If you can edit DNS (Cloudflare, your registrar, your host's control panel), pick this one.

A URL-prefix property covers only addresses that start with the exact prefix you enter, such as https://www.example.com/. You can verify it by uploading an HTML file, adding a meta tag to your home page, or through an existing Google Analytics or Tag Manager setup.

Verification usually takes a few minutes. Data starts collecting from the moment the property exists, though Google often has some history from before that. Expect a day or two before the first numbers appear.

Open the Performance report

In the left menu, open Performance, then Search results. This is the report you will use for rankings. At the top you'll see four boxes:

  • Total clicks
  • Total impressions
  • Average CTR
  • Average position

Click a box to show or hide its line on the chart. For rank tracking, turn on Average position and Impressions. Clicks matter too, but position is the number you're logging.

Below the chart sits a table with tabs: Queries, Pages, Countries, Devices, Search appearance and Dates. The Queries tab lists the searches that showed your site. Each row has its own clicks, impressions, CTR and position.

Set a useful date range

The default range is the last three months, which smooths everything into one blurry average. Click the date filter and choose Last 7 days for a weekly check, or Last 28 days if your site gets little traffic and a week gives too few impressions to mean much.

The date dialog also has a Compare tab. Comparing the last 7 days with the previous period adds a second column for each metric, so you can see at a glance which queries moved. Sort by the difference column to put the biggest gains or losses at the top.

Search Console keeps 16 months of data. Older numbers disappear, which is a good reason to keep your own log.

Look up one keyword's position

Click + Add filter, choose Query, and type your keyword. You can match queries that contain the text, match it exactly, or use a regular expression for groups of similar searches. The average position in the top box now refers only to searches matching your filter.

That number is what you'd write into the rank log. Search Console reports it with one decimal, for example 7.4, which means your page appeared on average around the seventh result for that query during the period.

Two filters make the reading sharper:

  • Country. If you serve customers in one country, filter to it. Positions in other countries can be very different and drag the average around.
  • Device. Mobile and desktop results often differ. If most of your visitors use phones, check mobile on its own.

Google has also added a filter that splits branded queries (searches containing your brand name, including misspellings) from non-branded ones. It isn't available for every site, especially smaller ones with few impressions. Where it shows up, it helps you separate people who already know you from people finding you for the first time.

Check which page ranks

A query can be answered by different pages on your site at different times. Click a query in the table, then switch to the Pages tab. You'll see which of your URLs appeared for it. If two pages keep swapping places for the same keyword, that often explains a jumpy position line, and it may mean the pages overlap too much.

You can work the other way, too. Filter by Page, paste one URL, and open the Queries tab to see every search that page shows up for. This is a good way to find keywords you didn't know you ranked for.

What Search Console won't show

A few gaps are worth knowing before you trust the numbers.

Position is only recorded when your result was actually shown. If you sit at position 40 and nobody scrolls that far, you may see a dash or nothing at all for that query.

Some queries are left out of the table to protect searchers' privacy, so totals at the top can be higher than the sum of the rows. The interface also shows only the first 1,000 rows. The Export button sends the current view to Google Sheets, Excel or a CSV file.

Numbers can also shift for reasons that have nothing to do with your site. In September 2025, Google stopped supporting a URL parameter that let automated tools load 100 results in one request. Many site owners saw desktop impressions drop and average position improve around that time. The most common explanation is that fewer automated rank-checking requests were being counted as impressions. If your history crosses that period, read the change with that in mind.

Turn it into a routine

Checking once is interesting. Checking every week is what shows you a trend. Pick a weekday, set the range to the last 7 days, filter to your country and run through your list of keywords. Write each average position into a log along with the date and a note about anything you changed on the site. Our guide on building a simple weekly rank report has a template for this, and the rank log on our home page draws the chart for you.

Google's own help center covers each report in more detail: see Performance report (Search results) and what impressions, position and clicks mean.

Questions

How long does Search Console keep ranking data?
The Performance report covers the last 16 months. If you want a longer history, export the numbers regularly or log them in a spreadsheet or rank log.
Why does Search Console show no data for a keyword I rank for?
Position is recorded only when your page actually got an impression. Very rare queries and queries Google treats as private for user protection can also be left out of the query table.
Is Search Console data real time?
No. Expect a delay of a day or two. The most recent days can be incomplete and may still change, so compare full weeks rather than yesterday against today.

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