Why Google Analytics and Search Console Data Never Match

Why do Google Analytics and Google Search Console data, which are Google’s own tools that measure visitors to websites, show different results? Why Search Console clicks and Google Analytics organic sessions don’t match?

There is more than one answer to these questions, we have listed below the reasons why the data of the two tools do not match.

Google Search Console Data

Search Console Data January 1 – March 4

Google Analytics Data

Google Analytics Data January 1 – March 4

Reasons for Google Analytics and Search Console Data Not Matching

• While Search Console looks at the canonical URL of the landing page, Google Analytics reports the opened URL.
• Google Analytics collects data through the Javascript code added to the pages on the websites, it cannot measure on the pages where this code is blocked or on the pages without a measurement code, but Search Console can. If the visitor to the website uses a plugin that blocks the Javascript code that triggers the GA code, or if this code is prevented from being triggered in any way, GA cannot collect data.
• Search Console measures data on a single domain, if the Google Analytics property collects data from more than one domain (subdomains), there may be data differences.
• Google Search Console transfers data according to the Pacific Time Zone, while Google Analytics transfers data according to the defined time zone. When the data is analyzed daily, if the two instruments do not measure in the same period, data differences arise.
• While Search Console shows up to 1000 URLs, Google Analytics can show more than 1000 URLs, there is no URL limit.

Not every user from the SERP has visited the page. The user may have clicked on your page with the query he made on Google, but maybe he left the page as he clicked or closed the tab. In this case, the page may not have loaded and the GA code may not have been triggered, but GSC will count it.

In the documents published by Google, the reasons for the inconsistency of the GA and GSC data;

• The site may not have been crawled after the change,
• The status of Search Console not counting the visits made by robots,
• Google has highlighted the cases where GA code does not work in browsers where Javascript is not enabled.

As a result, there may be data differences in the data tools due to the measurement methods, the fact that the Google Analytics and Google Search Console tools do not match does not mean that the data is inaccurate.

References:

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-search-console-google-analytics-data/358206/

https://www.searchenginenews.com/sample/content/why-dont-the-numbers-between-google-analytics-and-google-search-console-mat

https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/9419894?hl=en