One SEO professional asked John Mueller about data in Google Search Console. Should this align with their analytics?
They explained that they’re aware that Google and other websites state that data they obtain on Google Analytics and Google Search Console will not match exactly.
However, they should make sense directionally-speaking.
This means that for organic search, all clicks will always be graded on the sessions that you are getting.
Is this understanding correct?
John explained that he thinks it depends on what is currently set up and what you’re looking at specifically.
If you’re looking at it from a site level, then this is pretty much correct. If you’re looking at it on a per URL level on a very large site, then it’s possible that these individual URLs are not tracked in Google Search Console, and that you may see different changes.
Or you could see changes over time, or some days it’s tracked, and some days it’s not tracked.
This can happen if you have a really large website.
However, if you examine the website overall, then it should be pretty close. Google Search Console measures what is shown in the search results: the clicks and impressions from there.
Analytics uses JavaScript to track what is happening on the website side. And these tracking methods are slightly different.
They also probably have slightly different ways of de-duplicating things. So John would never expect them to line up completely, but they should be pretty close.
This happens at approximately the 10:52 mark in the video.
John Mueller Hangout Transcript
SEO Professional 4 10:52
I actually have two questions. And I’m going to start my first one by confirming a premise that I have. Google and other websites have stated that the data that we get on Google Analytics and Google Search Console, they will not match exactly, but they will make sense directionally. Which means for your organic search, all your clicks will always be greater than the sessions that you’re getting. Is that understanding correct?
John 11:22
I guess it depends on what you have set up and what you’re looking at specifically. So if you’re looking at it from a site level, then probably that’s about correct. If you’re looking at it on a per URL level on a very large site, then it could happen that those individual URLs are not tracked in Search Console, and that you would see slightly different changes, or you would see changes over time or some some days, it’s tracked, some days, it’s not tracked, in particular, if you have a really large website.
But if you look at the website overall, then that should be pretty close. I mean, Search Console measures essentially what is shown in the search results, the clicks and impressions from there. And Analytics uses JavaScript to kind of track what is happening on the website side. And those tracking methods are slightly different. And they probably have slightly different ways of de-duplicating things. So I would never expect these to line up completely. But overall, they should be pretty close.
SEO Professional 4 12:27
Got it. So I think I’ll give you the context of the problem now. So when I’m facing, I’m running an e-commerce website, and there’s three different kinds of pages that I have. One is the product listing pages, there you have the list of products, and one is the product description page, which I’m calling the PDPs.
So when I’m looking at the organic data, organic search instead that I’m getting. So for the sessions that I get on a product listing page matches directionally with the data that I’m getting on, on the Google Search Console for the PLPs. But for the PDPs, for my product description pages, I’m getting a data difference of around 10x. So let’s say if I’m getting 500 clicks for a product description page.
I’m getting 5000 organic sessions for those product description pages. So I’m not able to make sense out of it, what’s the probable cause? And what’s causing this problem? But then, like you said, in an overall website level, when I look at the overall organic sessions and our organic clicks, they’re kind of making sense. But when I’m looking at the page level, it falls apart for PDPs. But for listing pages, it is making sense.
John 13:37
Yeah. I think it is also a bit tricky with regards to things like canonical URLs, and things like that. Where I could imagine, if you’re looking at individual product pages, that you start to see more and more differences there. That’s perhaps another layer that is involved there. The other thing is sometimes analytics are implemented incorrectly.
And that can play a role if you’re seeing overall kind of on a website level that it’s kind of aligned and probably it’s implemented okay. But that might also be something just to kind of double-check. But from what you’re saying, I’m assuming it’s a large e-commerce site? I don’t know. Yes. But if it’s a really large e-commerce site, then there are definitely limits in Search Console on how much data we collect per day for sites. So if you drill down on a per year level or on a per query level, then that’s something where you might see those differences on a large website.
SEO Professional 4 14:41
Got it. But if that were to happen, if what you’re saying is true, I would have seen the data discrepancy for product listing pages and for corporate listing videos as well. But product listing pages making sense, like the clicks and sessions are making sense. It’s the description pages that’s not making sense.
John 14:59
Well I mean, usually, if we have more data for individual pages, then those will be kind of tracked a little bit better in Search Console. So that’s probably why kind of like the pages that are a little bit higher level essentially, probably have kind of more complete data in Search Console. Whereas if you drill down to the leaf pages on a larger website, then that’s probably where you would expect to find more differences.
SEO Professional 4 15:25
Got it. So I think, what’s been gelling for me is for all over the internet that I’m reading, I’m seeing that everybody is facing that they’re getting more sessions than clicks. But for me, it’s completely opposite, I’m getting more clicks than sessions. So I think that’s where I’m struggling.
John 15:44
In analytics, how do you mean?
SEO Professional 4 15:46
Yes, yes, performance sessions in analytics are more than the clicks that I’m getting on Search Console. A traditional problem would be that your clicks are more than your sessions. Right?
John 16:00
Not necessarily. I think you’re probably seeing the effects of a large website and small chunks of the data on there. And that’s something where you can see these variable differences like that.
