Google recently announced that Search Console Insights now support integration with Google Analytics 4 (GA4) properties. This is a continuation of Google’s integration of GA4 with other Google products and a welcome step. However, the reporting functionality this provides is minimal and is unlikely to be widely used.
What is Google Search Console (GSC)?
Search Console is an online suite of reporting and tools from Google related to how your site is seen by Google’s web crawler, included in Google organic search results, and seen/clicked on by users in organic search results.
What is Google Analytics 4 (GA4)?
GA4 is the new version of Google Analytics. The existing version of Google Analytics will be sunset on 7/1/23 for standard accounts and 10/1/23 for 360 accounts, which means that GA4 is the future of Google Analytics and the platform that you should be migrating to from your existing Universal Analytics configuration if you haven’t already.
What are Search Console Insights?
Search console insights is a standard report within Google Search Console that combines data from Google Search Console and Google Analytics to highlight key performance metrics and dimensions tailored to content creators and publishers. The report is a very high-level snapshot on the performance of your website and its content over the past 28 days. It includes data on performance like:
- Pageviews and Avg. Engagement Time
- The overall website
- New content created in the past 28 days
- Most popular content (by pageviews) form the last 28 days
- Top Traffic Channels by Pageviews
- Google Search Metrics including:
- Overall clicks
- Search queries with the most clicks
- Search queries with the greatest increase in clicks
- Referring links from other websites
As you can tell from the data above, the reporting is very high level and quite limited. While the integration is a welcome step by Google, it is unlikely to be widely used when other reporting tools can be more effectively used. For example, creating a custom dashboard in Data Studio that combines the data.
What Does this Integration of GA4 and GSC Mean for Me?
You are now able to connect GSC to your GA4 property, something you couldn’t do previously. This will allow you to see GA4 data in your Search Console Insights report. Integrating the platforms is a welcome step that can be taken, but we would still recommend you leverage more customized reporting via Data Studio. Additionally, the reporting in Search Console Insights doesn’t offer much ad-hoc analysis capability either, so it’s unlikely to replace your dedicated use of Analytics and Search Console’s more robust analysis tools.
If you are looking for help with improving your organizations reporting and analytics capabilities, please reach out to info@morevisibility.com.
