How to read your Search Snapshot

The Search Snapshot asks you four things: your website, what a customer would type into Google to find you, where, and an email address. It then takes three readings and sends you the report. Here is what each one means and what to do with it.

1. Google page one for your search

We run the search you gave us, from the country you chose, and show you the results. If your site is there, you see your position. We read down to position 30, so a number above 10 means you are on page two or three, where very few people look.

We also ring the first result that is a business like yours and not a directory or a listings site. That is who a customer finds instead of you. Open their page next to yours. The difference is usually visible in a minute: what they say on the page, how specific it is, how much of it there is.

2. How many of your pages Google shows

We count the pages Google returns for a site:search on your domain, up to 30, and set that against the number of pages your sitemap lists. A site with 120 pages in its sitemap and 9 in Google has a problem worth an hour of anyone's time. A site where the two numbers are close is fine on this point.

Treat the Google number as a rough guide. Google says itself that a site: search "doesn't necessarily return all the URLs that are indexed". For the real figure, see how many of your pages Google actually shows.

3. What an AI assistant recommends

We ask Perplexity, an AI assistant that searches the web before it answers, which business like yours it would recommend in your area. You get its answer word for word, and we mark whether it names you.

One answer is one answer. Ask again tomorrow and it can change. What is worth reading is who it names and why: the reasons it gives are usually things those businesses say clearly on their own sites.

The quick checks

Below the three readings are five quick checks on your homepage, each a pass or a fail:

• Does your homepage title name what people search for?
• Does your homepage have a search description, the short text under a Google result?
• Can the search crawlers that AI assistants use read your site?
• Does your homepage tell search engines what you are, with structured data?
• Does your site answer as fast as the competitor we ringed?

The first and third matter most. A title that does not name what you do makes it harder for Google to match you to the search. If your site blocks the AI crawlers, the assistants cannot read your own pages, so whatever they say about you comes from other sites.

When it says "could not check"

Sometimes a reading does not come back: your site blocked our request, a search timed out, or the sitemap could not be read. When that happens the report says it could not check. It does not say you are missing, because we do not know that. Run it again later, or check that reading by hand.

What to do with it

• Not on page one, and a competitor is: compare their page with yours for that search. That page is the one to improve first.
• Google shows far fewer pages than your sitemap lists: open Search Console and read the reasons it gives. Some are fine, some are not.
• The AI assistant names others and not you: read what it says about them. It is usually repeating what their own pages state plainly.

If you want someone to go through it with you, the free Visibility Check is a 15-minute call on exactly this.