It might sound obvious, but understanding how to find the help documents in the product and in this help center can really make your life easier.
Mastering the documentation
You can access help documentation in several different ways within the product:
- View the help documentation for any report by clicking the little help icon
at the top of the page. - You can drag the embedded help page around, if it's in the way.
- You can open the embedded help page in a new browser tab if the embedded window is too small by clicking "Open in a new window" at the bottom of the help page.
- Look for learn more links in the product for help on a specific section.
- Search directly within help. Search covers both help documentation and the community forum.
at the top of the page.
Why don't you use screenshots in the documentation?
- The text (and sometimes the layout) are different in each language. We'd have to take a separate screenshot for each language, and then crop, resize, add arrows, and so on for each language screenshot.
- The product user interface changes often. We'd have to update the screenshot every time the product changes, because it's confusing when a screenshot doesn't match your report.
- Should we use the mobile view or the desktop view? Or both?
So though we'd love to include screenshots in these docs (we really would), in most cases it's just not practical.
Help forum
You can find the email forum for Search Console (and website owners in general) in the help center. This is a community of new and expert users, with a searchable history going back many years.
Before asking a question, it's courteous to first search to see whether this question was answered either in the documentation, or in a previous mail thread. And always remember to be polite in any discussion thread.
To open the help forum, either:
- Click the Community button at the top of the help center to open the forum.
or
- Click the menu bar
in the help center, then click Community
in the help center, then click CommunityYouTube, Twitter, and more
- YouTube: Here is the official playlist of YouTube videos for Search Console beginners.
- Twitter: There is a Twitter feed that posts issues with Google Search and Search Console.
- Blog: There's also a blog for site owners about Google Search in general.
- Office Hours: The Google Search Central team holds periodic office hours.
Giving feedback
- To provide feedback on Search Console (the product), click Submit Feedback in the navigation bar on any page.
- To provide feedback on the help documentation (these docs), click either Give feedback about this article or one of the Was this helpful buttons at the end of any page. Don't use this path to provide feedback on the product; product feedback here won't reach the team.