Google Adds New Guidance For Merging GA4 & Search Console Data via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google has rolled out updated documentation on how to combine data from Google Analytics and Search Console.

Unified SEO Insights

The new guidelines recommend using Google Analytics and Google Search Console together. Google Analytics tracks user behavior on your website, while Search Console monitors your site’s performance in Google Search.

This combination gives you a clearer view of website activity, allowing you to compare key metrics like sessions and clicks. Understanding how users find and interact with your site helps improve SEO decisions.

Leveraging Looker Studio

This document explains how to use Looker Studio to view organic search traffic data from Google Analytics and Search Console on one dashboard. It provides steps for setting up data sources and creating charts, using different colors to distinguish between the two platforms.

SEO professionals can track key metrics like sessions, engagement rates, returning users, clicks, and click-through rates (CTR). This visual format helps identify changes in performance and resolve differences between the two data sources.

Addressing Data Discrepancies

The documentation explains the differences in metrics from each tool. Both measure website engagement, but results may vary due to session tracking methods, time zone settings, attribution models, and reporting of non-HTML pages.

Google’s guidelines offer insights into these differences and tips to reduce data gaps.

How This Helps

SEO professionals can follow the steps in the new documentation to better assess their website’s performance.

By connecting data on what happens before and after a visitor clicks on a search result, marketers can better evaluate their SEO efforts.

To be clear, connecting Google Analytics and Search Console is a recommendation, not a requirement. If you’re satisfied with your analytics tracking and reporting solutions, you don’t have to do anything different.

For more details, view the official documentation on the Google Developers website.

SEJ STAFF Matt G. Southern Senior News Writer at Search Engine Journal

Matt G. Southern, Senior News Writer, has been with Search Engine Journal since 2013. With a bachelor’s degree in communications, ...