Google Search Console: Tips and best practices

Google Search Console: Tips and best practices#

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 Search Console API 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.

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.

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.

Understanding data freshness and validation#

The Include fresh data (not finalized yet) setting in the Search Analytics report allows you to access the most recent data from the last 2 days. However, this data is not yet finalized and may change, which can lead to discrepancies when comparing with the Search Console UI.

To ensure accurate validation, use data older than 2 days, as it is considered finalized.

If Include fresh data is not enabled, no data will be retrieved for the most recent 2 days. If the data is not finalized then it is not available.

Understanding search types#

Select the appropriate search type for your analysis:

  • Web: Default type — shows performance in regular Google search results. See how your blog, product pages, or service pages rank

  • Image: Shows how your images appear in Google Images. Track image SEO performance (e.g., alt text, file names)

  • Video: Tracks how your content appears in Google Video search results. Monitor video content like YouTube embeds or on-site videos

  • News: Shows your performance in Google News and the News tab. Great for publishers or media websites

Understanding aggregation types#

Controls how GSC aggregates data for URLs in reports. The default is Auto (let the service decide) where Google chooses how to aggregate data intelligently, often combining AMP/non AMP URLs (AMP=Accelerated Mobile Pages).

Aggregate by page (URI) groups performance by page while the last option groups it by property.

Report type comparison#

Different Google Search Console report types serve different analysis purposes:

  • Search Analytics - Tracks performance: Yes - Covers entire site: Yes - Focuses on crawling: No - Level of detail: High (for queries/pages) - Ideal for: SEO & keyword analysis

  • Sitemaps Report - Tracks performance: No - Covers entire site: Yes - Focuses on crawling: Yes - Level of detail: Medium (overview by sitemap) - Ideal for: Crawl/index coverage

  • URL Inspection Tool - Tracks performance: No - Covers entire site: No (one URL at a time) - Focuses on crawling: Yes - Level of detail: Very high (single URL) - Ideal for: Debugging a specific page

Connector limitations#

  • 2-3 day delay in finalized data

  • Search Appearance is not compatible with other dimensions. Therefore it requires its own datastream

  • If you fetch ALL search types in one report, search type is not an included field

Levels of granularity#

Available dimensions include: Query, Page, Country, Device, Date, Search Appearance, URL Inspection

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 Search Console API documentation.

Contents