Are Google Search Console and Google Analytics the same?
Although both tools are used by marketers, they serve different purposes. Google Search Console (GSC) is a tool used for monitoring your website’s performance and search engine results specifically as it relates to Google. In comparison, Google Analytics (GA4) helps you understand how users behave on your website and measures their engagement on your website.
They’re both useful tools for tracking acquisition metrics across the funnel.
Google Search Console overview
Google Search Console is an analytics tool that helps marketers and SEO experts monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot website performance in Google search. It focuses only on analytics data across Google searches.
GSC is for:
- Understanding how Google crawls and indexes your website
- Monitoring technical SEO health
- Monitoring search performance
Key metrics available in GSC include:
- Clicks
- Impressions
- Search queries driving traffic to your site
- Click-through rates (CTR) from search results
- Average search position
- Mobile usability issues
- Core Web Vitals performance
Google Analytics (GA4) overview
Google Analytics 4 is a web analytics tool used by marketers. It’s an event-based software that lets you track and report on website traffic and user behavior.
GA4 measures how users interact with your website or app after they land on your landing pages. This gives you detailed insights into user engagement and conversion patterns.
Google Search Console provides you with non-personalized data and does not require much configuration from your side.
Setting GA4 up can take longer, as you’ll need to define the main events you want to track. Moreover, you can integrate Google Analytics data with other services such as Google Ads, Shopify, and more.
In contrast to GSC, Google Analytics tracks all traffic coming to your website from multiple channels, not just Google.
GA4 is for:
- Tracking user interactions and behavior patterns
- Measuring conversion rates and goal completion
- Analyzing user demographics and interests
- Cross-platform tracking (web and mobile apps)
- Reporting on acquisition metrics
Key metrics you can monitor include:
- Engaged sessions and engagement time
- Event tracking and conversions
- User acquisition channels
- Revenue and e-commerce performance
- Real-time user activity
Is Google Search Console part of Google Analytics?
No, Google Search Console and Google Analytics are two separate tools owned by Google, each with distinct purposes and data collection methods.
While both tools provide valuable insights about your website, they focus on different aspects of web performance and user behavior.
However, you can integrate Google Search Console with Google Analytics to view search performance and analytics data inside one tool.
Learn more about Google Search Console API.
This integration allows you to access GSC metrics directly within GA4, giving you a more comprehensive view of your website’s performance in a single place.
For example, you could correlate search performance data with user behavior metrics and make more informed decisions about your digital marketing strategy.
Let’s look at some key similarities and differences in more detail.
Similarities between Google Search Console and Google Analytics
Google Search Console and Google Analytics share some important similarities in their functionality and use.
Both tools help with understanding website performance and user interactions. However, they approach these aspects from different angles.
How to track and analyze website traffic with GA4 and GSC
GA4 tracks all traffic sources and user interactions once visitors are on your site, while GSC focuses specifically on Google Search traffic.
Both tools show you which pages receive the most visits. But, they provide different metrics and information to analyze traffic.
GA4 shows more detailed data on user behavior, such as the channel and source that drove traffic and firmographics. GSC offers more specific information about search performance and visibility through metrics like impressions, average position, and click-through rate.
You can measure page performance with both GA and GSC
Another similarity between GA4 and GSC tools is that they provide page performance data.
GA4 focuses on user-centric metrics like page load time, bounce rates, and conversions. On the other side, GSC provides technical performance insights through Core Web Vitals and mobile usability reports.
Together, they offer a comprehensive view of how your pages perform technically and from a user experience standpoint.
For example, by combining data from both tools, you can track the performance of your web pages in one view. Check the ready-to-use dashboard template in Google Sheets to do this.
Landing page performance dashboard in Google Sheets
Analyze the effectiveness of your landing pages, from traffic and engagement to conversions, using data from GA4 and Search Console.
Key differences between Google Search Console and Google Analytics
While GA and GSC both offer features to analyze traffic and landing page performance, there are key differences in the data they show.
This makes both tools equally valuable to have in your toolkit for website analysis.
Understanding the nuances will help you leverage GA and GSC to get a complete picture of your website performance.
Here’s a quick summary:
| Google Analytics (GA4) | Google Search Console (GSC) | |
|---|---|---|
| Traffic sources | All sources (social, direct, paid, organic, referral) | Google Search traffic only |
| Data Scope | Comprehensive user behavior and traffic data | Search performance and technical SEO data |
| Tracking | All marketing campaigns (paid, organic, social) | Organic search performance only |
| Metrics | Users, Sessions, Conversions, Revenue | Impressions, Clicks, Average ranking position, Core Web Vitals, Usability, Technical SEO errors |
| Integrations | Multiple third-party tools and Google products | Google products (GA4, Google Ads, Google Looker Studio) |
| Primary use | Overall website performance and user behavior | Search visibility and technical optimization |
Now, let’s look at five important differences between Google Analytics and Google Search Console.
1. You can only analyze search queries and rankings within GSC data
Google Search Console provides access to search performance data that you won’t find in GA4.
This helps you understand if people searching for “best marketing analytics software” are finding your product’s website and what position you rank for that term.
2. Goal tracking is only available in Google Analytics
GA4 allows you to set and track specific goals to measure relevant conversion metrics. You can use Google Tag Manager to set these up without needing to understand how APIs or JavaScript tracking codes work.
For example, you can track the number of visitors who complete a trial signup form on a landing page, purchase from your e-commerce store, or spend more than three minutes on your blog.
These conversion metrics help you understand if your website is achieving its business objectives, something you can’t measure using GSC.
3. GA offers more in-depth user data compared to GSC
Another key difference is that Google Analytics provides detailed insights about your visitors that GSC doesn’t capture.
For example, using GA4, you can see demographic information like age and gender, user interests, and behavior patterns such as which pages they visit in sequence.
You could track how users from different countries interact with your site or which age groups spend the most time on specific products.
In comparison, GSC only shows how many users click through search results and which search queries direct them to your website. This information shows their purchase intent only.
4. Google Analytics tracks all traffic, while Google Search Console tracks traffic from Google
When using both tools, you will notice a discrepancy between the number of clicks in GSC and the traffic metric in GA.
This is because Google Analytics captures traffic from all sources, including PPC, social media, direct visits, email campaigns, and other search engines.
For example, when using GA4, you can see how many visitors come from your Facebook ad campaign or through links in your newsletter.
GSC, however, only shows you organic traffic data from Google Search, making it more focused but limited in scope.
Nonetheless, combining its data with Google Ads metrics gives you a complete view of your Google presence.
You can compare and analyze how your organic and paid efforts work together to drive traffic and conversions. Grab this free branded organic search vs. paid campaign performance dashboard.
Branded organic search vs. paid campaign performance dashboard for Google in Looker Studio
Compare the performance of branded searches from Google Search Console with paid campaigns on Google Ads to gain insights into your overall brand impact.
5. GA is focused on user behavior while GSC is focused on search engine performance
GA is great for understanding what users do once they land on your website, while GSC focuses on overall search engine performance.
While GA4 is the tool that helps you measure marketing success through conversion tracking and campaign performance, GSC is your go-to tool for maintaining technical website health.
It alerts you to critical issues, such as security problems, crawl errors, or indexing issues that could affect your Google search results performance.
Think of GA as your marketing advisor and GSC as your technical consultant.
The downside is that GSC reports are cluttered and hard to understand. Thankfully, you can create custom ones by exporting the data for better visualization inside a BI tool. For instance, check out this free technical SEO dashboard template in Looker Studio.
Technical SEO dashboard in Looker Studio
Track the technical SEO health of your website to make sure it operates efficiently for Google to find, crawl, and index your website pages.
Technical SEO dashboard in Google Sheets
Get a useful spreadsheet dashboard that shows the technical SEO health of your website including indexing, canonicalization, and more.
Google Search Console vs Google Analytics 4: Reporting features
Both tools offer reporting capabilities, but understanding their distinct purposes helps you leverage each platform’s insights for website optimization.
The main difference between GA and GSC reports is their analytical focus.
GA collects data on user behavior and engagement. In comparison, GSC reports focus on your site’s performance in Google Search results and its technical health.
Both tools serve different purposes, but understanding these helps you leverage each platform’s insights for comprehensive website optimization.
Google Analytics reports
As mentioned above, GA reports focus on user behavior and engagement. Here are the key reports you can use:
- Real-Time reports: Monitor active users on your site and see what pages they view and what actions they take. For example, you can watch live traffic and user behavior during a product launch or a Black Friday campaign and adjust promotions based on real-time engagement.
- Acquisition reports: See how users find your website across different channels. You might discover your email newsletter drives 30% of conversions while social media brings in the most new users. This helps you optimize your budget allocation and improve marketing efforts.
- Engagement reports: Analyze how users interact with your content through events, session duration, and page view data. For example, you can see which blog posts keep readers engaged the longest or which products get the most views.
- Conversion reports: Monitor goal completions and e-commerce transactions. You could track how many visitors complete a contact form or make a purchase after reading a specific blog post.
- Monetization reports: Track e-commerce purchases and in-app transactions. This report offers insights into which products have the highest cart abandonment rates or which promotional campaigns drive the most sales.
- Retention reports: Analyze how well your site keeps users returning through new vs. returning user metrics and cohort analysis. For example, you might notice that users who download your free guide have a 40% higher return rate.
- Demographic reports: Understand your audience through metrics such as location, age, gender, and interests. For example, this could reveal that your product tutorials are particularly popular with users aged 25-34 in urban areas.
- Tech (Firmographic) Reports: Review your site’s performance across browsers, devices, and platforms. You could spot trends like the checkout process having a high abandonment rate on specific mobile devices. This helps you understand where there’s a need for optimization.
Google Search Console reports
While GA reports will help you understand marketing campaigns, GSC reports provide data on search performance and technical SEO.
Here are the most used reports:
- Performance report: View your site’s search ranking metrics, including clicks, impressions, and average position. For example, you can get specific insights that your “Beginner’s Guide on Google Analytics” blog article ranks well but has a low click-through rate. If this is a page that converts well, you should optimize the article title and meta description to improve the CTR.
- Indexing reports: Monitor how Google indexes your pages. This helps identify issues like blocked URLs or duplicate content that might affect your search visibility.
- Core Web Vitals and HTTPS reports: Track your site’s loading performance, security issues, and page experience. These include both desktop and mobile usability reports. You could use this to identify pages that require speed and UX optimization.
- Links report: Analyze both internal and external links to your website. This helps you understand which websites link to you and how your internal linking structure performs.
How to use Google Analytics and Google Search Console together
Integrating your Google Search Console and Analytics accounts is a must for comprehensive website analysis.
The integration process is also straightforward. Navigate to GA4’s Admin section, find Product links, and connect your GSC property.
However, you’ll need to have an Admin role or be a website owner for both Google Analytics and Google Search Console accounts, and it may take 24-48 hours for data to start flowing between the platforms.
Once linked, you can access GSC data within your GA4 interface. Let’s recap what each tool helps you track:
Use Google Analytics data to:
- Track which landing pages convert best.
- Analyze user behavior on your money pages and A/B improvements.
- Monitor website visitor engagement metrics for organic vs. paid traffic.
- Track how users progress through your acquisition funnel and where they are dropping off.
- Measure revenue generated from organic traffic vs. referrals to understand collaboration opportunities.
- Understand audience demographics and technographics.
Use Google Search Console data to:
- Identify the top performing queries in the SERP.
- Monitor click-through rates for different search queries.
- Track which pages are losing search visibility.
- Find low-hanging fruit improvement opportunities in queries where you rank in the top 10 results but not in the top 3.
- Monitor mobile usability issues affecting search performance.
Right now, you’re likely looking at separate reports to track each of the above. You have to switch between reports, and even after interlinking the tools, you’ll still need to go to GSC for more customizable ones.
The result?
A fragmented experience that makes it easy to miss important insights and that can quickly become time-consuming and frustrating.
This is where data visualization tools like Google Looker Studio or Google Spreadsheets can help. You can either build custom reports from scratch, integrating both GA and GSC data sources, or use prebuilt templates designed specifically for this purpose.
These dashboards combine key metrics from both platforms, making it easier to spot trends, identify opportunities, and share insights with stakeholders across comprehensive reports.
Next, we’ll explore some of our recommended reporting dashboard templates you can use to visualize GA and GSC data together.
Google Analytics and Google Search Console reporting dashboard examples
Building custom reports in Looker Studio or graphs and tables in spreadsheets is straightforward. The challenge is choosing which metrics to look at and which visualization method works best.
You’ll face the blank page syndrome every time you try to create a custom report.
To simplify the process, use Coupler.io to connect Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 data to Looker Studio or other visualization tools.
This reporting and analytics platform allows you to create custom reports from scratch and provides a library of dashboard templates to get started.
Here are our recommended dashboards for analyzing GA4 and GSC data together.
AI traffic performance dashboard
Considering recent changes in Google SERP and the increase in searches across different AI platforms, this AI traffic performance dashboard is a must. It will help you understand the performance of traffic coming to your website from AI tools.
You will learn which tools drive the most visitors to your website and which have the highest conversions and revenue. The dashboard also allows you to evaluate how engaging the traffic from each AI tool is based on metrics like average session duration and bounce rate.
SEO dashboard for Google Search Console
This dashboard gives you an overview of the key SEO metrics and information that are not easily obtainable from native reports in Google Search Console.
For example, it gives you a summary of the best- and worst-performing URLs.
Use the SEO analytics dashboard to track clicks, impressions, and CTR dynamics, as well as your best and worst-performing pages.
Landing page performance dashboard
If you want a more visual way to spot the best-performing landing pages based on different metrics from GA4 and GSC, use the Landing page performance report.
The automatic color highlights help you quickly spot top-performing pages that bring in traffic, engage visitors, and convert them.
Use this on-page dashboard to assess how your landing pages contribute to business outcomes by tracking metrics like users with key events, user key event rate, and purchase revenue.
Google Search Console vs Google Analytics: Which is best for SEO?
The most effective SEO strategy requires the use of both tools. While GSC shows how your site performs in search results, GA4 gives you more specific insights into what happens after users click through.
Using GSC and Google Analytics for agencies as well as businesses’ in-house teams helps to understand whether content ranks well and if it actually serves the target audience’s needs.
You can think of Google Search Console as your SEO diagnostic tool and Google Analytics as your user behavior tool. Together, they provide the comprehensive insights needed to improve search visibility and user experience, ultimately leading to better SEO outcomes.
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