Search Console and Google Analytics integration?
In early March, Google emailed users to notify them of an update regarding the linking integration between Google Search Console (GSC) and Google Analytics (GA).
The purpose of the update is to allow users to export data from GA to the linked GSC property offering a better data flow between the two products.
Google’s search advocate John Mueller confirmed the upcoming “new experience” is in preparation for future functionality not yet released. Yet, what that functionality would be remains unclear.
Yeah, this was a bit of a confusing email, sorry. Essentially the team needs this to prepare for future functionality that’s not yet released, so at the moment you have to hang tight a bit and wait.
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) March 8, 2021
Initially, Muller stated the new experience relates to the Search Console Insights feature. However, search engine expert Barry Schwartz noticed the email redirects to the property association feature and referred to Mueller for further details.
Unfortunately, John’s reply puzzled Schwartz even further – “maybe I’m the one that’s confused then – hmm.” Daniel Waisberg (another search advocate at Google) shed some light on the matter –
So John was actually right (which is often the case!) – this is related to Search Console Insights. This is an update to the GA-GSC association to enable the data moving both ways.
— Daniel Waisberg (@danielwaisberg) March 8, 2021
The data flow between Search Console and Google Analytics will be subject to the respective Terms Of Service as follows –
- from Google Analytics to Search Console – Search Console terms of service
- from Search Console to Google Analytics – Google Analytics terms of service
According to Search Console Help, the GA-GSC association will work as follows –
“When you associate a Search Console property with a Google Analytics property, Search Console data is enabled for all reporting views associated with that property by default. As a result, anybody with access to that Google Analytics property or one of its views may be able to see Search Console data for that site.”
For now, we know new and further functionality is coming our way, but, what will it be related to, would it be around core web vitals, mobile-first indexing, new APIs or something else – we do not yet know.
