Set up access carefully
Verify ownership using a method appropriate to the site and keep account access with the business. Grant only the access each person needs. A verified property lets the owner inspect available search data; it does not itself improve rankings or certify that every page is eligible for indexing.
Read reports with context
Review Performance for queries, pages, countries, impressions and clicks over comparable date ranges. Look for meaningful changes and check whether pages were updated, seasonality changed or tracking conditions differ. Average position is an aggregate, not a promise of the exact position every searcher sees.
Inspect a page before changing it
URL Inspection can help check Google's last known view and request crawling after a meaningful update. A crawl request is not an indexing guarantee. Use the Page indexing report to investigate patterns, then test the affected URLs and internal links. Google's Performance report guide explains its available metrics.