Google Analytics & Search Console tabs

Two of the most-used Performance tabs come from Google: Analytics (how people behave on your site) and Search Console (how you show up in Google search).

Google Analytics (GA4)

The Analytics tab summarises your website performance for the selected period, with period-over-period change:

• Sessions and users - how much traffic, and how it's trending.
• Engagement - engagement rate and key events.
• Conversions - conversion rate and, if you track ecommerce, revenue.
• Top pages and segments - what's pulling traffic and who's converting.

When the traffic does not look like people

Google Analytics counts every visit, including automated ones. If the numbers have the shape of automation - nearly every session a first-time visitor with no source, gone in under two seconds - the tab says so in one line under the tiles and the tiles drop their change arrows, so a spike in bot traffic never reads as a green win.

When that happens you also get a Who is actually visiting estimate: roughly how many visits look like people (entry pages where visitors stay) and how many look automated (entry pages where every visitor leaves at once). It is an estimate from the landing-page split, not a count, and the proper fix is to filter known bots in Google Analytics itself.

No conversion events yet

If Google Analytics has recorded no conversions in this period, the last one, or anywhere in the daily series, the tab reads that as no conversion events set up rather than a result of zero. The Conversions tile says so once, the conversion step leaves the funnel and the conversion columns leave the tables, so you are not shown 0 and 0.00% on every row. Set up a conversion event (a form submit, a sign-up, a booking) in Google Analytics and the figures return on the next refresh.

Days with no traffic, and the newest days

The daily trend plots every day in the period you have selected. A day on which Google recorded no visits at all is drawn as zero rather than left out, so a quiet week looks quiet instead of the line skipping from one busy day to the next. The newest day or two can show as a break at the right-hand end of the line: Google Analytics publishes a day's figures a day or two after it ends, and Search Console two to three days after, so until then that day is unknown rather than zero and the chart leaves it blank. The headline tiles are unaffected. The same rules apply to the daily trend on every channel tab.

Search Console

The Search Console tab shows your organic search footprint:

• Queries - what people search to find you, with impressions, clicks and CTR.
• Average position - where you rank, shown as a position rather than a percentage: "16.4, was 11.0", with the colour carrying the direction (lower is better).
• Top landing pages - the pages search sends traffic to.
• Devices and countries - where that search traffic comes from.
• Target keywords - where you rank for the queries you want to win. A keyword that is not ranking yet says Not in the top 100 yet, and where one of your ranking queries shares a word with it, the closest one is shown beside it.
• Quick wins - your highest-impression queries just off page one (positions 4-20) with at least 20 impressions. A query with two impressions is not an opportunity, so it does not appear.

What changed

A What changed card under the trend chart shows where your impressions moved: the queries and the pages with the biggest rises and the biggest falls against the previous period, each with its before and after figures. Both directions always show, because a small change in the total is often a big rise and a big fall cancelling out. Moves too small to matter are left off. A query or page that did not appear at all last period is marked new. Above the lists, the card gives the total gained by the pages that rose and lost by the pages that fell.

The Top Queries and Top Pages tables have a Change column too, so you can sort either table by what moved most.

The card shows where impressions moved, not why. Search Console does not record causes. When your weekly insights or your brain suggest a reason, it is labelled as a possible reason, not a finding. The breakdown appears after your data next refreshes.

Worth knowing

Two things Search Console can see that are easy to miss get their own short notice on the tab when they apply:

• Two versions of your site are indexed - for example with and without "www". Rankings and clicks split between the two until one redirects to the other; it is a one-line fix for whoever runs your site.
• Searches find you under a different name - if every query that finds you uses a name other than the one on your account, and that name matches your web address, the tab points it out. If it is a former name, the rename has not reached search yet.

It also surfaces keyword gap hints - terms competitors rank for that you don't - feeding into Market research.

Search Console dates run a few days behind. Google publishes search data two to three days late, so the tab's 7, 30 and 90 day periods end on the last day Google has actually published rather than on yesterday, where every other tab's periods end. That is why a Search Console period can end a few days earlier than the same period on other tabs, and it is deliberate: counting days Google has not reported yet would show every period as falling. The queries are ordered by impressions, so the terms you are seen for most come first even when none of them have earned a click yet.

Reading the deltas

Every metric shows its change versus the previous period, so you're always reading "better or worse?", not just a number. Switch the date control (last 7, 30 or 90 days) to zoom in or out. A figure the platform's own checks have flagged shows no change arrow at all - see the traffic note above.

You can also compare any two dates of your own, not only 7, 30 or 90 days. A custom range shows headline figures and the daily trend, compared like for like, and leaves the breakdown tables on the fixed periods - see Custom date ranges.

Related reports

Both tabs list the SEO reports published for you. If none exist yet, the tab shows your latest report of any kind as a single line instead.

If a tab says "connect", set it up under Connecting Google.

Every table on both tabs - landing pages, top pages, queries and target keywords - has an Export CSV button, and the export carries a few columns the cards have no room for. See Exporting a table to CSV.