What Is Google Search Console?
Why it matters
It is the only first-party data in this glossary. Every third-party metric is a vendor estimate; Search Console shows what Google itself recorded, which makes it the place to settle arguments about whether a campaign or a batch of placements did anything.
Example
After a batch of placements, the owner compares clicks and average position for the target pages across the ninety days before and after in Search Console rather than in a rank tracker.
Common misconception
That its Links report is a complete backlink index. It samples and truncates, omits links Google has not crawled or has chosen to discount, and does not rank them — read it as Google's own view, not as a replacement for a dedicated link index.
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