Google Search Console: Setup guide

Google Search Console: Setup guide#

This guide explains how to collect data from Google Search Console.

Limitations#

Collecting data from Google Search Console comes with the following limitations:

  • Google Search Console keeps data for the last 16 months. You cannot fetch older data.

  • Data is available in Google Search Console approximately 48 hours after it is collected by Google Search Console.

  • The searchAppearance dimension, cannot be used with any other dimensions.

  • The hour dimension retrieves data for up to 10 latest days with an hourly breakdown. No data can be retrieved for dates beyond the 10 day lookback window.

Creating a datastream to collect data from Google Search Console#

The basics of creating a datastream to collect data from any data source are explained in our guide to Collecting data in Adverity. This guide contains information about the specific steps to create a datastream to fetch data from Google Search Console.

Authorization: Allow Adverity to access Google Search Console#

  1. If you choose Access using your credentials or Access using someone else’s credentials, in Set up or edit Site URLs, you or the person granting access must choose one of the following options:

    • Choose Grant access to all items, including those created in the future to give Adverity Site URLs to access all existing items and all items created in the future.

    • Choose Select specific items to which you want to grant access to only give Adverity Site URLs to access the selected items. Adverity will not automatically have access to items created in the future. You will need to grant Adverity access to any items created in the future.

    Warning

    If you use your credentials to grant Adverity access to Google Search Console, all the items available to you using your credentials will be visible in the Authorizations page to all Adverity users with permission to edit this authorization.

    If someone else uses their credentials to grant Adverity access to Google Search Console, the same applies to the items available using their credentials.

    This is important to consider if you do not want all Adverity users with permission to edit the authorization to be able to see the details of the authorization items. For more information about user permissions, see Managing user permissions.

Configuration: Choose the data you want to collect from Google Search Console#

To choose what data to collect and customize the Google Search Console datastream configuration, follow these steps:

  1. (Optional) Rename your datastream.

  2. In Report type, select the type of data to collect from Google Search Console.

  3. In Site URLs, select the websites for which to collect data. If you do not select any items in a drop-down list, Adverity collects data for all items in the drop-down list.

  4. In Dimensions, change the list of fields that you want to see in your data extract.

Note

For information on configuring other Google Search Console fields, see Advanced Google Search Console tips.

What’s next?#

Advanced Google Search Console tips#

Configuring data collection from Google Search Console#

In the Settings tab of your Google Search Console datastream overview, you can configure a number of additional settings:

Search type

Select the Google search type for which to collect data. This option only has an effect if you select Search Analytics in the Report type field.

Aggregation type

To specify how Adverity aggregates the collected data, select one of the following options:

  • (Default) Select Auto (Let the service decide) to let Google Search Console decide the appropriate aggregation type.

  • Select Aggregate values by URI to aggregate data by page.

  • Select Aggregate values by property to aggregate data by property.

For more information on aggregating Google Search Console data, see the Google documentation.

Filters

To include only specific dimension values in the data extract, specify dimension filters in JSON format. You can use the operators contains, equals, notContains, notEquals. For more information, see the Google documentation.

An example is shown below.

[
    {
        "dimension": "column1",
        "operator": "notContains",
        "expression": "value1"
    },
    {
        "dimension": "column1",
        "operator": "notContains",
        "expression": "value2"
    },
    {
        "dimension": "column2",
        "operator": "contains",
        "expression": "value3"
    }
]
Include preliminary data

Select this checkbox to collect the most recent data which has not yet been confirmed. This is usually data from the last three days. For more information, see the Google documentation.

Include fresh data (not finalized yet)

Select this checkbox to include fresh (not finalized) data. This setting is ignored when the hour dimension is selected, as hourly data may be partial.

Discrepancies between totals#

When you specify dimensions in your data collection from Google Search Console and later aggregate the values, the totals might be different from the totals you would see if you collected data without specifying dimensions. For more information, see the Google documentation.

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