Google added a new developer document and video explanation on how to use Google Analytics data and Google Search Console data together. One of the biggest confusions I see is when people try to compare the data between those two analytics tools - they measure different things in different ways.
Google explained that "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."
The new document can be found over here and it starts off:
Using Search Console and Google Analytics together can give you a more comprehensive picture of how your audience discovers and experiences your website, which can help you make more informed decisions as you work on your site's SEO. This guide explains how to use Looker Studio to monitor metrics from Search Console and Google Analytics, visualize the data together, and troubleshoot data discrepancies between the tools.
It then breaks down the different between Google Analytics and Google Search Console:
- 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.
Then he has these sections:
- Comparing data in Google Analytics and Search Console
- Monitor your Google organic search traffic in Looker Studio
- Investigate more deeply in Google Analytics and Search Console
- Understanding data discrepancies between Google Analytics and Search Console
- Resources for using Search Console and Google Analytics together
Daniel Waisberg and Cherry Prommawin also put together a short video explaining all of this:
Here is one of the charts in the doc:
Daniel wrote on X, "I'm so glad to see these resources live! It was a fun project to go back to GA and play with it. You'll find some good advice to understand discrepancies and to make GA and GSC work well for you. Check out https://goo.gle/gsc-ga."
Forum discussion at X.
