Google replaces Search Console Insights with Insights

For some years now, the beta program of Google Search Console Insights beta program has been available for a few years, which we believe is a overview for less tech-savvy users to see at a glance how their website how your website is performing on Google.

However, over the last year, more and more features have disappeared from this report, making it less useful than before. Google has now integrated this report into Search Console itself. Let's take a look at what is possible and what has changed in this blog post!

Google Search Console insights

When Google Search Console Insights was first introduced, the reports and insights were still very useful, for example, you could see the following during the first updates.

What could you see in Google Search Console Insights at launch?

• Total page views of the website in the last 28 days
• Average session duration of users on the website
• The most popular pages of the website and their performance
• The most important search queries for which the website was found in Google
• New search queries that generated traffic for the first time
• Click-through rate (CTR) on search results in Google search
• Traffic sources outside of Google, such as social media or referring websites
• Popular referring pages that led visitors to the website
• New content (recently published pages) with insights into performance
• The main social media platforms through which visitors came to the website
• Number of visits via social media (e.g. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)
• User-friendly and visual presentation of data
• Aimed at less tech-savvy users, such as bloggers and small business owners
• Clear explanations for each statistic (e.g. what sessions or clicks mean)

In the years that followed, however, more and more of this was removed, and it was just a basic overview that didn't give much away.

The new Insights report in Google Search Console

As of this week, this report has been integrated into Google Search Console itself, and the beta program for the separate Google Search Console Insights tool is now no longer available. And it won't be available in the future either. It can now only be viewed via the direct link.

Whether this is a gain or a loss cannot be said at this stage, as the tool in the Google Search Console itself is also becoming increasingly popular, more effort will probably also be made by Google to supplement the insights in it. In any case, the insights are a gain in the regular Google Search Console, where the data is presented in a much more technical way. A quick overview in this is certainly a nice addition for less experienced users, and as it is now no longer necessary to link Google Analytics, this will also be more accessible than before.

What has changed with the integration into Google Search Console?

Google has now fully integrated the separate Search Console Insights Dashboard into the regular Google Search Console. While some insights have been retained, the tool has become more sober and functional in its current form - less visually appealing, but still useful for content owners.

What's still available:

• Clicks and impressions of your website in Google search
• Performance of your content (including the most popular and declining pages)
• Search queries that lead visitors to your website
  
• The main countries from which users visit your website
  
• Traffic sources within Google (such as Discover, images, videos and news)
  

What has disappeared or changed:

• No more data from Google Analytics, such as session duration or bounce rate
• Social media traffic is no longer displayed
  
• New content is no longer highlighted separately; everything falls under an overview of pages
  
• Reporting is less visual and intuitive than in the beta phase
  
• Less suitable for non-technical users, as the display is stricter
  

So with this change, Google has made it easier to view such reports, unfortunately at the expense of certain parts that we thought were very useful. What do you think of this development? Let us know via social media!

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