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Data Captured from Google Search Console
Search Analytics data is captured from Google Search Console via the Google API utilizing the PHP library.
Google has limitations on API access, such as 1,000,000 queries per day.
More importantly, there is a limit to the amount of data returned per request. Google provides a maximum of 5,000 rows per request. In an effort to capture as much data as possible, the Organic Search Analytics tool captures data on a daily basis by search type (web, image, video) by domain. In other words, for each domain Organic Search Analytics performs 3 API requests per day - one request for each Web, Image, and Video search type; each request will return up to 5,000 rows. Of note, these three requests all happen behind the scenes. The user interface only displays one button per day per domain - no further action is required by the user.
Organic Search Analytics captures the following fields from Google Search Console for Search Analytics:
- Domain Name
- Date
- Search Engine {google}
- Search Type {web|image|video}
- Device Type {desktop|tablet|mobile}
- Query
- Impressions
- Clicks
- Click Through Rate (CTR)
- Average Position
You may notice that the data Organic Search Analytics captures and displays varies from the former Google Webmaster Tools reporting, Google Analytics, possibly Google Search Console it self, or other reporting tools you may utilize. While this can be frustrating, it is understandable for multiple reasons.
The biggest one is the amount of data captured. As pointed out above, up to 5,000 records are captured per search type. Many people will compare this tool to the reporting in Google Search Consoles' Search Analytics, which only displays 1,000 records. Right there the data in Organic Search Analytics (or the Google API) is not an apples to apples comparison to Google Search Console Search Analytics. In fact it's a better snapshot of your data.
Even more confusing, in Google Search Consoles' Search Analytics report, at the top of the page are summary numbers - Total Clicks, Total Impressions, Avg. CTR, and Avg. Position. Those numbers are an aggregate of all of the traffic for that domain. However, those numbers will never be accurately reflected in the rows of data listed below or in the exports from within the tool. This is by design by Google. NOTE: I know in a Google Webmasters Hangout (English) hosted by John Mueller in mid-2015, John discusses this topic. Unfortunately I do not have the specific video to reference at this time.
Google discusses further data comparison discrepancies in this article.
If you are trying to compare data from Google Search Console (directly or via this tool) to Google Analytics the data will not be an apple to apples comparison. Here is Google's own John Mueller discussing that the data is captured differently.
On December 14th, 2015 Google made an update on how they log data that may show increases in the Google Search Console report for the total number of clicks and impressions. It is not clear if this will affect the API as well - the method that the Organic Search Analytics tool captures data from Google. Source
This wiki article explains the steps that can optionally be taken if you would like to validate the data that Organic Search Analytics captures in comparison to the data that Google provides. Validating Data Provided by Google