Google Search Console Data Connector User Guide

Google Search Console Data Connector User Guide

Info
Google Search Console provides valuable insights into your website's search performance and visibility in Google Search results. This guide will walk you through connecting Google Search Console to Power My Analytics, creating reports, and understanding key metrics and considerations.



Prerequisites

Before connecting Google Search Console to Power My Analytics, ensure you have:
  1. Verified Site Ownership of the website(s) with a role of either Verified Owner or Delegated Owner in Google Search Console

Adding an Owner in Google Search Console

  1. Go to Google Search Console and click on Settings.
  2. Select Users and permissions.



  3. Click Add user and enter the email address you'd like to add as an owner.



  4. For Permission, select Owner.



  5. Click the Add button.

Adding Google Search Console as a Data Source

  1. Log out of all Google accounts except the one you want to connect.
  2. In your Power My Analytics Hub, go to Sources in the menu.
  3. Click + Add New Source and select Google Search Console from the gallery.
  4. Sign in to your Google account when prompted.
  5. Grant Power My Analytics the required permissions (View search console data for your verified sites) to access your Google Search Console data.


Creating a Data Studio Report

  1. After adding Google Search Console as a data source, go to Reports > Data Studio in your PMA hub
  2. Select Google Search Console under Create Data Studio Report (this will open the official Data Studio application in a new window)
  3. Google Data Studio Configuration:
    1. Step 1:
      1. Name your data source (e.g. "Google Search Console - My Website")
      2. Select your Power My Analytics hub from the dropdown
      3. Optional: Leave "Use report template for new reports" checked to use the PMA demo template
      4. Click Next
    2. Step 2:
      1. User Account: Select your Google Search Console account for real data or "Sample Account" for sample data
      2. Click Next
    3. Step 3:
      1. Choose "Sites", "Tables", and "Property Parameter" for your reports
        1. Property parameters "discover" and "google news" cannot be selected with the "Site Impression" table
        2. Page and Search Appearance dimensions can only be used with the "Url Impression" table
      2. Optional: Allow modification of these selections in reports
      3. Click Connect (top right)
    4. Step 4:
      1. Click Create Report (top right)
For a quick start, use our pre-built Google Search Console demo template.

Key Reports and Fields

Google Search Console data in Power My Analytics offers a wide range of metrics and dimensions. Here are some popular metrics you can use in your reports:
  1. Performance Metrics: Clicks, Impressions, Average CTR, Position
  2. Query Metrics: Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position
  3. Page Metrics: Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position
  4. Country Metrics: Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position
  5. Device Metrics: Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position
  6. Search Appearance Metrics: Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position
  7. Sitemap Metrics: Is Pending, Discovered URLs by Sitemap, Type, Last Submitted, Last Downloaded
For a complete list of available fields, refer to the Schema Explorer.

Limitations and Important Considerations

  1. Cached Data Requests with Unique Metrics and Date Dimension: When a unique metric is paired with the date dimension, this will result in a request for cached data instead of a request for live data. For more information, please see Understanding Cached and Live Data Requests.
  2. Sitemaps: Sitemaps data is only available as lifetime data, historical data will be collected beginning from the first time you connect.
  3. Backfilling: Backfilling is available to 16 months. We store your data the first day you connect with us.

Unavailable Data

  1. Realtime data
  2. Custom fields

Troubleshooting

See our article Troubleshooting Google Search Console for information on issues that may affect the Google Search Console connector.