When I started with SEO and Web Analytics I was puzzled by the discrepancies between Search Console and Universal Analytics.
Sure, people explained to you that “the 2 calculate different things”.
But this isn’t enough to understand why the two data sources are so different.
Now with GA4 the issue persists so I will show you when to use each and a more “detailed” explanation than most online.
Table of Contents
The Differences At A Glance
Search Console only contains Google Organic data, Google Analytics 4 is focused on every channel.
GSC measured what happens outside of your website (SERPs), GA4 tracks the inside, which actions your users take.
A good website/content audit should include both since they cover different use cases.
GA4 is hated by the community and for good reason: it’s hard to use in its interface form.
The advantage is that it contains more actionable data compared to GSC.
GSC is often relegated to checking queries and positions, as well as assessing the technical health of your website, including indexing.
But if you are a competent professional, you know that you will never rely on the UI and use a BigQuery export instead.
BigQuery can’t help you with some specific details though:
How Is The Data Obtained?
Search Console data is given straight by Google, you can’t really tamper with it or alter it.
It only records canonical URLs, so you won’t get all of your URLs there!
Google Analytics requires you to add a script to your website and that’s what allows you to get data inside GA4.
An incorrect setup or bot traffic can render your GA4 reports useless.
Needless to say, GA4 is also affected by Consent Mode, whereas GSC is not!
This means that you can NOT compare the 2 datasets, they are about different things.
Reasons For Discrepancies
Both tools use completely different criteria to calculate metrics.
Let’s consider sessions vs clicks, that according to Google should be theoretically the closest metrics:
Not a chance! That’s normal because data is recorded differently.
If you want to filter GA4 data “correctly”, you’d need to:
- use landing pages over page location (which I don’t recommend for content audits and in general, by the way)
- filter by source = google and medium = organic, Organic Search as a channel is wrong because it includes other search engines
Even so, the data doesn’t match as you can notice.
Some of the most common reasons include:
- GSC has a delay of 1-3 days
- GA4 can show real-time data but I advice you wait 3 days
- Timezone differences
- GDPR/Consent Mode (GA4) + anonymized queries (GSC)
- GSC has PDF and other pages always reported, as long as they rank. GA4 doesn’t by default
- Bot traffic filters, albeit questionable
- Tracking is hardly 100% correct
- The calculation of metrics is completely different
GA4 allow you to select timezones, whereas GSC doesn’t, it’s stuck to PST (Pacific Time).
If that wasn’t enough, GA4 Explorations retain only the last 2 months by default, up to a maximum of 14 months if manually selected:
GSC can only go back to 16 months without you tampering with it.
The Different Metrics
You can check the following resources to learn much more about each:
When I said that the metrics are quite different, I explain exactly why in each article. You will realize that the 2 can’t be compared!
I could talk about them for hours but a short summary related to traffic is:
Specialism VS Generalism
If you are an SEO, your #1 data source should always be GSC.
It’s hard to tamper with it and be affected by bot traffic.
Still, it’s possible as we have seen in September 2025 after Google changed the &num=100 parameter resulting in a drop in impressions.
You also get the most valuable data for understanding your audience, the queries!
GA4 doesn’t have access to the same benefit, although you can link to GSC from GA4 but it’s not a key feature.
GSC focuses on the SERPs and not on what happens inside your website.
GA4 is the standard for marketers and many data professionals analyzing web data.
In real-life scenarios, you want to compare the performance of different channels and avoid silos, as we will see soon.
The Technical Integration
Both are Google tools and have a wonderful BigQuery integration that gets you better data.
They also have APIs that allow you to get data but it’s not as complete as the previous method.
And they are both needed for content audits as you can’t really use only one source.
The worst thing is that they are affected by several limits, like:
- not having all the data
- hiding some due to privacy
As I always say, Web Data is directionally accurate and should be used to alter your decisions.
What it means is that you start with a given course of action and data can help you pick another one, hopefully for the best.
The Meta Way Of Using GA4 & GSC
As of today, the best way is to use the aforementioned BigQuery exports to store your web data.
Once that’s done, you can work on your custom definitions, metrics and do whatever you want.
This way you bypass a lot of limitations I have explained in this article about GSC and GA4 differences with BigQuery.
Or you can use the UI/API and enjoy limited data and too many data problems you can avoid.
This is the way to go from now on.
Synergy & Interactions
You can join the 2 tables to get even more insights, as explained in my article about combining GSC and GA4 data in BigQuery.
The URL fields can be used to combine the 2 tables, as illustrated in more detail below:
What many ask me and get wrong is understanding which queries bring conversions.
This is IMPOSSIBLE because the data doesn’t have any way to tie each query to events.
Google Organic is one of the most important and profitable channels but it’s not enough!
Say you want to evaluate the performance of your content, you are forced to look at different perspectives at least:
- Performance across all channels
- What happens inside the page
- How people land on the page
Nice custom dimensions and events can radically change your report.
GSC is still needed though, because keyword data is extremely valuable and guides your SEO decisions.
Even if you are not an SEO, it’s audience data you can use for market research.
All of this I cover in more detail with full functional code inside my dedicated course:
