User guide4 min

Connect Google Search Console

Connect a site to Google Search Console and PixyScan shows the clicks, impressions, CTR and average position Google reports for it, by page and by query, on the Search performance screen. It starts at Basic, needs admin access to the site, and only ever reads from Search Console.

Before you start#

Check these four things first. Each one stops the connection if it is missing.

Tier: Basic or above. Free and Hobby show a locked card with an upgrade link.
Your role: Admin access to the site. Viewers can see the connection but cannot change it.
Google account: One that is a verified user of the site's Search Console property.
Access asked for: Read-only. PixyScan never changes anything in Search Console.

Connect a site#

Each site connects on its own, so a client's site can use the client's Google account.

1
Open the Search Console tab
Open the site, choose Settings under Manage, then open the Search Console tab.
2
Read what is stored and shared, then agree
Before PixyScan sends you to Google, the tab sets out what it will store (the property's clicks, impressions, CTR and position, by page and by query, for the history your tier keeps), who will see it, and where traffic-drop alerts with click figures are sent. Read it, then tick I agree. You can connect only once it is ticked.
Only people with access to the site see its data: the members its admins add and the workspace's admins. Admins control who has access in Site settings → Members, as Members explains.
3
Choose a Google account and approve
Press Connect Google Search Console. Google asks you to pick an account and to let PixyScan view your Search Console data. Approve it, and Google sends you back to the same tab.
4
Pick the property
PixyScan lists every property the account can see. The one that best matches the site's address is labelled Best match for this site and is already selected. Each property shows whether it is a Domain or URL-prefix property, and your access level. Press Use this property.
5
Let the history load
PixyScan loads the most recent days first, then older months over the next few minutes, as far back as your tier keeps. After that it syncs once a day. Sync now fetches new days early, once every 15 minutes per site.

app.pixyscan.com/w/…/s/…/settings?tab=search-console

Screenshot · not captured yet

The Search Console tab of Site settings after connecting: the Google account, the chosen property, the sync status, the last sync time and the history kept on your tier, with Sync now, Change property and Disconnect.

Once connected, the tab shows which Google account and property the site reads, and when it last synced.

Read Search performance#

Search performance is in the Explore group of the site sidebar, between Performance and AI readiness.

Field	Shows	What it does
Search type	Web	Web, Image, Video, News, Discover or Google News. Discover and Google News have no query data, so they show pages only.
Date range	28 days	7, 28 or 90 days, 6 months or 16 months. Ranges longer than your tier keeps are disabled.
Totals	Four figures	Clicks, impressions, CTR and average position, each with its change against the period before.
Trend	Chart	Clicks and impressions day by day across the range, with markers for your production scans and deploys.
Queries and Pages	Tables	Search, sort and page through either list. Open a row to see the pages for that query, or the queries for that page, and the split by device and by country. These come straight from Google when you open them.
Export	CSV	Choose Daily totals (CSV) for clicks, impressions, CTR and position for each day of the range, or download the Queries or Pages table. Each file covers the date range and search type you picked. A very long Queries or Pages file is trimmed to its top 50,000 rows by clicks.
Impact	Tab	Each fix and regression your production scans recorded, and how the changed pages did in Google search afterwards compared with the rest of the site.

Query rows leave out anonymised queries, which Google withholds for privacy, so they add up to less than the totals. The latest two to three days are provisional and can still change.

Search performance does not read a scan. The data belongs to the site and is synced from Google, so it stays the same whichever scan you have open.

Once connected, the same data also appears next to your scans: clicks on the Overview, deploys on the trend, clicks beside each page, and the Impact tab. Measure the impact of your fixes explains each one.

History on each tier#

How far back PixyScan keeps a site's Search Console data.

Field	History kept	What it does
Free and Hobby	—	Not included.
Basic	6 months	The last 180 days.
Pro and Enterprise	16 months	Google's maximum. Google keeps nothing older.

Upgrading loads the older months on the next sync. Moving to a smaller tier that still includes Search Console hides the older days straight away and deletes them 30 days later. Moving to Hobby or Free pauses the sync and hides the data, which is deleted 30 days later unless you upgrade again.

Disconnect, downgrade, change of admin or new terms#

What happens to the connection, and to the data, in each case.

Disconnect. Press Disconnect on the Search Console tab and confirm. PixyScan stops syncing and deletes the site's synced Search Console data.

Moving to Free. Syncing pauses and the data is hidden. Upgrade within 30 days and it picks up where it stopped. After 30 days the data is deleted and the site has to be connected again.

The person who connected loses admin access. Syncing pauses until another admin reconnects with their own Google account. If nobody does within 30 days, the data is deleted.

Changing the property. Only the person who connected the site can choose a different property. Anyone else with admin access reconnects with their own Google account and picks one.

If the data-use terms change. When PixyScan changes what it stores, who sees the data or where it goes, the site pauses until the person who connected it reads the new terms, ticks I agree and presses Confirm and resume on the Search Console tab. Anyone else with admin access reconnects with their own Google account instead. While the site waits, its Search Console data is not shown and nothing is synced, but nothing is deleted. Once confirmed, syncing catches up on the days it missed.

Your Google data stays read-only and private to the site

Only people with access to the site see its Search Console data: the members its admins add and the workspace's admins. The access Google grants is stored encrypted. The Privacy Policy explains how Google user data is handled.

Troubleshooting#

The three problems people hit most often.

Google says the app has not been verified. Google shows this while its review of PixyScan's Search Console access is still in progress. It is about the review, not about your account. Choose Advanced, then continue to PixyScan. If Google does not let you continue, contact support.

The property is missing, or cannot be chosen. The list shows every property the Google account can see. A property marked Needs verified access in Search Console is one where the account is Unverified. Ask an owner of the property to add the account as a user in Search Console, then reconnect. If the property is not listed at all, the account has no access to it: connect a Google account that does.

Google access was removed. If access is removed in the Google account, or expires, the tab shows Google access was removed. Press Reconnect and approve again. If nobody reconnects within 30 days, the data already synced is deleted.

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