What it checks
It looks at three things you can verify yourself in Search Console.
- Trend. Clicks and impressions in the last 28 days of your export against the 28 days before.
- Clicks for your positions. Each page’s clicks against what a page at that position usually earns. A page on page one that gets far fewer clicks than expected usually has a title or description problem, or a search result where something else is taking the click.
- Branded share. How many of your clicks come from people searching for your name, rather than for what you do. It carries the most weight in the score, because it shows whether search is finding you new customers or only catching people who already know you.
What you get back
- A score out of 100, with the three parts shown separately so you can see where it comes from.
- Your three priorities, each tied to a number from your own data.
- An action plan, one line per job, ordered by the clicks it could bring back every 28 days, with a complexity rating on each.
- The non-branded searches where you rank between 4 and 20, with the extra clicks each would bring at position 3.
- A CSV download, and a copy of the plan you can paste straight into Google Sheets to tick off as you go.
How to get your export
- Open Google Search Console and choose your site.
- Go to Performance, then Search results.
- Leave the date at the last 3 months, or choose longer.
- Click Export at the top right, then Download CSV.
- Drop the zip file into the tool. There’s no need to unzip it.
What it can’t see
The export Search Console gives you has limits, and the tool says so rather than guessing around them. Each file is capped at 1,000 rows. Google also hides the searches it treats as private, which on a small site can be most of your clicks, so the branded share is measured on the clicks Google does show. The export lists searches and pages separately, which means the tool can tell you a search is close to the top three, but you’ll need Search Console’s Pages tab to see which page is ranking for it. The tool gives you the exact filter to use.
The expected click-through rates are a guide, not a law. AI Overviews now answer many question searches directly, so a question page with a low click rate may be doing as well as it can. Where that’s likely, the action plan tells you to check the live results first.
FAQ
Is the Search Console health check free?
Yes, completely free and with no sign-up. You can run it as often as you like.
Do you see my data?
No. The file is read by your own browser and nothing is uploaded anywhere. You can check this by turning off your internet connection after the page has loaded. The tool still works.
Which Search Console export does it need?
The standard Performance export from Search results, downloaded as CSV. The whole zip file works, or you can drop in the Queries, Pages and Dates files on their own.
Why does it ask for my brand name?
To separate searches for your name from searches for what you do. Add the spellings people use, separated by commas, and the score updates as you type.
What should I do with the action plan?
Start with the first job and work down. If you’d rather have someone go through it with you, send it to me and I’ll come back with what I’d do first.