On February 6, 2025, Google released an updated guide on integrating Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Search Console (GSC) data. The search engine giant announced this update through their latest documentation update page, explaining the reason for revision as follows:
“Using Google Analytics and Search Console together can help you understand how people discover and experience your website, which can you make more informed decisions as you work on your site’s SEO.”
Since SEO data analysis requires technical knowledge and expertise, businesses can benefit from working with professional SEO services. By identifying trends, patterns, and behaviors, experts can help you implement effective SEO strategies to improve your website’s overall site performance.
Integrated Data Analysis
Google recommends using Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Search Console (GSC) data together to gain a more comprehensive understanding of user behavior and the overall user experience on your website. This enables you to understand not only how visitors find your sites, but also how they interact with it once they arrive. Google’s guidance defines the distinct roles of GSC and Google A4, helping you realize the unique value of each tool:
“Search Console: Provides data about how your website is performing in Google Search results, such as how many times your website shows up in search results (impressions), how many times people click to visit your site from Search (clicks), which search terms bring people to your website (queries), and more. It focuses on activity that happened before a person arrived at your website from Google Search.
Google Analytics: Provides data about visitors’ interactions with your website, such as which pages they visit, how long they stay, and what actions they take. It also shows you data about where your audience is coming from, which can help you measure the effectiveness of your traffic channels, like email, referrals from other websites or social platforms, paid search, and organic search.”
These tools measure and report data using different metrics and systems. GSC focuses on reporting your site’s search performance (before a visitor arrives), while GA tracks visitor behavior once they are on your website. As these differences in measurement and methodology lead to discrepancies in the data, it’s important not to expect identical numbers when comparing them.
New Looker Studio Dashboard
In the updated documentation, Google launched a pre-built Looker Studio dashboard template designed to help digital marketers visualize organic traffic data from both GSC and Google A4 side by side. This new tool allows you to compare key metrics, monitor performance trends over time, and track crucial user engagement metrics such as returning visitors, click-through rates, and engagement rates.
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Understanding Data Discrepancies
The guideline acknowledges that small variations in data between GSC and GA4 are normal, and should not raise concerns. However, if you notice significant differences between the data, it’s necessary to investigate the cause. The document highlights several common reasons for large gaps between clicks and session data. Understanding these can help you troubleshoot and minimize discrepancies:
- Implementation or configuration issues in Google Analytics
- Variations in user acceptance for cookies or tracking
- Time zone differences
- Availability of attribution models
- Canonical URLs
- Traffic breakdowns
- Non-HTML pages
- Bot traffic
Keep in mind that there might be more than a single reason for discrepancies depending on your site’s specific configurations, audience, and composition of the traffic.
Resources for Combining both Search Console and Google Analytics
Google has provided additional tools to merge GSC and GA4 data:
- Connect Search Console to Google Analytics
- Sit Kit plugin for WordPress
- Search Console Bulk data export and Google Analytics export to BigQuery
Why This Update Matters
By analyzing and comparing search result data with user interaction metrics, companies can gain valuable insights into how their website drives business outcomes. With the new Looker Studio integration and enhanced guidance on resolving data discrepancies, website owners can make more informed, data-driven decisions to refine their SEO strategies for sustained growth. By leveraging both Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) in tandem—and outsourcing SEO services to experts—businesses can gain a holistic, data-backed view of their website’s performance.
