How to Link Google Search Console to GA4

Linking your Google Search Console account to your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) account is going to give you access to more useful information within your GA4 dashboard. This is information that is going to help you make more data-informed decisions which will lead your business to success in the SERPs.

In this article, we will show you how to link your Google Search Console to your GA4 account so you can access this data.

What is the advantage of linking Google Search Console to GA4?

Simply put, integrating Google Search Console with GA4 is going to give you access to Search Console metrics such as:

• Queries
• Impressions
• Clicks
• CTR
• Average Position

Not only will this limit the need for you to switch between two separate tools, it will also give you access to information that you cannot usually get within your GA4 account, most meaningful being the queries your website is ranking for.

Linking these two Google tools will also give you access to new reports, not accessible within GA4:

• Queries Report
• Organic Search Traffic Report

What data will be available once I link Google Search Console to GA4?

Linking your Google Search Console account to your GA4 account will give you access to the following dimensions not usually found in GA4:

• Search queries
• Landing pages
• Devices
• Countries

You will also find the following metrics:

• Organic Google search clicks
• Organic Google search impressions
• Organic search CTR
• Organic search average position
• Users
• Engaged sessions
• Engagement rate
• Average engagement time
• Event count
• Conversions
• Ad revenue

How do I connect my Google Search Console account to my GA4 account?

There are two ways to connect your Google Search Console and GA4 accounts. You can do this within Google Search Console or within GA4. In this article, we’ll focus on how to do this within GA4.

In GA4, head to Admin > Search Console Links.

You will see a screen that looks like this:

Click the blue “Link” button on the top right-hand corner of this section.

This will bring you to a new screen pop-up which will contain all the link set-up that you need.

Click the blue “Choose accounts” link.

Note: You must be a verified site owner to complete the next steps. For the purpose of this article, we will assume you are.

Once you have clicked the “Choose accounts” link, you will be presented with a list of Google Search Console properties in which you are a verified site owner.

Image Credit: Analytics Mania

You can only link one GSC property with one GA4 webstream.

Once you have selected the Google Search Console property you want to connect, tick the box and click “Confirm” as shown in the image above.

You will then move to the process of choosing a web stream. Click select and then select your web stream:

Image Credit: Analytics Mania

The final step is to review everything and click “Submit”.

Image Credit: Analytics Mania

Once all these steps have been completed, you will see a green badge which confirms the link has been created.

You will need to wait up to 24 hours to start seeing data in your reports.

Where can I find my Google Search Console Data within GA4?

To find your Google Search Console data within your GA4 account, you need to head to your Acquisition Overview report.

You can do this by logging into your main dashboard, then clicking Reports > Acquisition > Overview.

The screenshot below shows where to access this:

Once here, scroll down to the bottom of this report and you will be able to access your Google Organic search traffic and Google Organic search queries tabs:

You can customise these sections to show different metrics.

For example, within the Google Organic search traffic report, we can ask it to show:

• Impressions
• Clicks
• Engagement rate
• Engaged sessions
• CTR
• Average position

We can also ask it to show the metrics above organised by:

• Landing page + query string
• Device category
• Country

Simply click the dropdowns to select the metrics you want to show, as shown here:

You can see more detailed views of these reports by clicking the blue links at the bottom of each section.

Clicking into the Google Organic search traffic report will show something similar to this:

Can I add Search Console reports to the GA4 sidebar?

Yes, you can.

Within your reports section, select “Library” at the bottom of the toolbar.

Within the “Collections” section of reports, you will see Search Console currently listed as unpublished.

Click on the three dots (settings) icon to the top right of the Search Console report and select “Publish” to publish this report live to your GA4 dashboard.

Your Google Search Console reports will now show on your sidebar, so they are easily accessible for future reference.

Hopefully this article has made the process of linking together your Google Search Console and GA4 accounts easy.

If you want to make more of your Google Search Console data, give SEOTesting a try. We currently have a 14-day free trial with no credit card.