How to Use the URL Inspection Tool

by Insomniac Designs Home

In the ever-evolving landscape of SEO, understanding how your website performs on search engines is crucial. One tool that stands out in providing insights into this is the URL Inspection Tool, most prominently available in Google Search Console (GSC).

What is the URL Inspection Tool?

The URL Inspection Tool is a feature within GSC that provides detailed crawl, index, and serving information about your webpages, directly from the Google index. It is an invaluable asset for website owners, SEO specialists, and content creators to optimize their site’s discoverability and indexing status on Google Search.

Getting Started

To use the URL Inspection Tool, you need to have a GSC account and your website verified in it. Once your site is verified, follow these steps to start inspecting your URLs.

Step 1: Access the URL Inspection Tool

Log in to your Google Search Console account.

On the main dashboard, look for the ‘URL Inspection’ icon in the left-hand navigation panel and click on it.

Step 2: Enter Your URL

In the search bar at the top of the page, type in the full URL of the page you want to inspect and press Enter.

The tool will then fetch data directly from the Google index for the URL you have entered.

Step 3: Analysis

After entering the URL, the tool provides a wealth of information categorized into several sections:

Inspection Results

You will see whether the URL is available on Google, which reflects its presence in Google’s index.

Coverage

This section sheds light on whether the URL can be indexed, or if there are issues such as crawling errors, page not found (404), server error (5xx), or any other indexing problems.

Mobile Usability

With mobile-first indexing, this aspect is crucial. It checks if your page is optimized for mobile devices.

Enhancements

Here, you can find details on the features that can help enhance the page’s appearance in search results, such as AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages), structured data, and more.

Page Resources

Sometimes, certain page elements may not be accessible to Google’s crawlers. This section identifies resources that can’t be loaded or indexed.

Step 4: Live Test

For a real-time check, you can click on the “Test Live URL” button, which will provide you with the current status of the page, reflecting any changes that haven’t been indexed yet.

Step 5: Request Indexing

If you’ve updated or fixed issues on a page, you can prompt Google to re-crawl and possibly re-index the page by clicking the ‘Request Indexing’ button. Beware that the indexing process is at Google’s discretion, so there’s no guarantee or precise timeframe for when your content will be indexed.

Using the Data Effectively

  • Troubleshoot and Fix: Use the tool to diagnose issues with your pages that may affect their performance in search results.
  • Monitor Changes: If you’ve made significant changes to a page, the URL Inspection Tool can help you understand how these changes impact its indexing status.
  • Understand Google’s View: It’s important to see your content from Google’s perspective – what it sees and what it might have trouble accessing.

Conclusion

The URL Inspection Tool is a powerful ally in SEO. By providing detailed feedback on indexation and visibility issues, it serves as a guide to optimizing your webpages for better performance in search results. Regular use of this tool can lead to improved page health, increased organic traffic, and ultimately, a more successful website.