What Should I Look For In Google Search Console for SEO Issues?

I’ve spent years cleaning up WordPress sites that were held together by duct tape, prayer, and plugins that hadn’t been updated since the Obama administration. When I get called in to troubleshoot a site that has seen its traffic tank, I don’t start with keyword research. I start with Google Search Console (GSC). If you want to stop guessing why your rankings are flatlining, you need to stop staring at vanity metrics and start reading the diagnostic reports GSC is handing you.

Most people treat Google Search Console like a scoreboard. That’s a mistake. It’s not a scoreboard; it’s a doctor’s office. If your site is "sick," the symptoms are right there in the data. Here is my checklist for auditing a site—the same one I use before I touch a single piece of content.

1. The "Before Anything Else" Rule: Speed and Hosting

Before you even look at your search performance, check your site speed. If your hosting provider is slow, no amount of SEO "hacks" will save you. Google has made it clear that Core Web Vitals matter, and GSC is where you’ll see the evidence. If your Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is consistently failing, it’s usually one of two things: your server is sluggish, or your images are bloated.

I always test page speed *before* touching keywords. If the site feels like a dial-up connection, your bounce rate is killing your rankings. If GSC shows your URLs are "slow," check your WordPress hosting package first. If you are on a $3/month shared plan, that is your https://bizzmarkblog.com/should-i-remove-or-redirect-broken-links-in-old-blog-posts/ problem. Upgrade to a managed WordPress host. Once the hosting is solid, address the image compression.

2. Search Performance: Don’t Get Lost in the Fluff

When you open the search performance report, ignore the pretty charts for a second. Filter by your most important pages. Are your title tags actually matching the search intent?

I see this all the time: a client complains about low traffic, but their title tag is "Home - My Business," while the page is actually about "Commercial HVAC Repair in Chicago." If your title tags don't match the actual post or page content, Google will ignore you.

Look at your CTR (Click-Through Rate). If you have high impressions but a low CTR, your title tags or meta descriptions are weak. Don’t fall for fluff; write for the user. If the user isn't clicking, Google assumes the content isn't relevant.

3. Mastering Index Coverage: The Clean-Up Crew

The index coverage report is where the real work happens. This is where you find out why Google isn’t crawling your site effectively. Look for the "Excluded" tab. Specifically, watch out for:

Soft 404s: This happens when a page doesn't exist but your WordPress theme still returns a "200 OK" status instead of a "404 Not Found." This confuses Google and wastes your crawl budget. Crawled - currently not indexed: This is the "maybe later" pile. Often, these pages are low-quality, thin content. Excluded by 'noindex' tag: Make sure you haven't accidentally blocked important pages in your WordPress settings.

Quick Troubleshooting Table: What to Look For

Error Type What it Means My Fix 404 Not Found Link is broken 301 Redirect to the most relevant page Soft 404 Page is gone but server is confused Fix the theme template to serve a true 404 Server Error (5xx) Your hosting is failing Contact your host or optimize database Redirect Error Broken redirect chain Simplify to a direct 301

4. The Spam Comment Mess

Nothing screams "I don't care about this site" quite like months of accumulated spam comments. When these comments pile up, they create thousands of thin-content, junk-filled pages that Google has to crawl. It hurts your site’s authority and wastes your crawl budget.

If you aren't using a tool like Akismet, you are leaving your site wide open. I also highly recommend Cookies for Comments to stop automated bots before they even hit your database. If your site is already infected with thousands of spam comments, clear them out in bulk via your database. Leaving that garbage to sit there is a surefire way to tell Google that your site is unmanaged.

5. Internal Linking: Giving Older Content a Lifeboat

One of the biggest mistakes I see agencies make is ignoring their "dead" content. You have old posts that rank on page 3 or 4 of Google. You don't need to write more content; you need to give those pages a push with internal links.

Search your high-performing pages in WordPress and see where you can link *out* to those older, struggling posts. This passes "link juice" and keeps your site architecture healthy. If you have external links pointing to garbage, use a tool like Unlimited Unfollow to manage your outbound links and ensure you aren't leaking your site's reputation to low-quality sources.

6. Image Compression and Resizing

I mentioned this briefly regarding hosting, but it deserves its own spot. If your WordPress media library is full of 5MB camera-raw photos, you are killing your load times. Google hates a slow site.

Before you obsess over technical SEO, ensure your images are resized to the display width and compressed. Use an image optimization plugin, but don't stop there. Regularly check your GSC performance report to see if "Mobile Usability" issues are popping up—often, these are caused by oversized images breaking the mobile layout.

Summary Checklist for Your GSC Audit

I keyword research for titles keep this checklist taped to my monitor. Every time I take on a new project, I run through it. You should too:

Check Page Speed (Google PageSpeed Insights) and verify with GSC Core Web Vitals. Clean up your 404 errors with 301 redirects. Install and configure Akismet and Cookies for Comments to halt spam. Use Unlimited Unfollow to manage external link equity. Review your Index Coverage; fix Soft 404s immediately. Compress your images—if it’s over 200KB, it’s probably too big. Go through your top 10 pages and verify they have at least 3 internal links pointing to older, relevant content.

Most SEO "experts" want to sell you on complex strategies and expensive software suites. I’m telling you: fix the technical mess, stop the spam, optimize your images, and help Google navigate your site. Once the foundation is solid, the rankings usually follow. Stop staring at the fluffy jargon and start clicking through your GSC reports. Your site will thank you for it.

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Pub: 28 Apr 2026 09:42 UTC

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