• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, December 21, 2016

During a recent Google Webmasters live stream on Search Console and mobile-first search indexing, John Mueller, Google Webmaster Trends analyst based in Switzerland, revealed an update to the amount of search data that Google could eventually make available to marketers in the Search Console, along with other tips.  

Google's team is working to adjust the user interface to accommodate using a full year of search data in Search Console, Mueller said. It takes time to gather the correct data and to make sure the interface is easy to use, he said. "If you have a year's worth of data, then the UI needs to probably be slightly different than what we have now," he said.

Don't expect any changes during the holidays with launches, Mueller said. Google is giving users a chance to relax rather than making them continually play catch-up.

The video walks through a variety of topic related to the Search Console, such as reasons why marketers should use it, how to handle verifications, property sets that can combine multiple sites into one entry, aggregate reporting tips, and data spikes. Search Console also includes analytics, allowing marketers to drill down into three months of data for details -- but that might change, according to Mueller.  

Mueller also spoke about mobile-first indexing and the types of tools in Search Console that would help to monitor how pages render on smartphones. It also provides the ability to monitor metadata dashboards within the Search Console such as structured data, rich cards and hreflang reports in all the reports not visible to users.