Connect Google (GSC + GA4)

Connecting Google brings two data sources into your project:

• Google Search Console — index coverage, search performance (clicks, impressions, CTR, position), sitemap status, and URL inspection data.
• Google Analytics 4 — landing page sessions, engaged sessions, conversions, and revenue.

Together with your crawl findings, these tell you not just what’s broken technically but what’s actually affecting your traffic and conversions.

Before you start

You need a Google account that has access to your site’s GSC property and GA4 property. That’s it. There is no Google Cloud setup — VisibilityIQ owns and operates the Google OAuth application, so you don’t create a Google Cloud project, enable any APIs, generate OAuth credentials, or paste a Client ID or Client Secret. You just sign in with Google and approve read-only access.

The access VisibilityIQ requests is strictly read-only — webmasters.readonly for Search Console and analytics.readonly for GA4. It can read your search analytics, index status, sessions, and conversions; it cannot submit, change, or delete anything in your account.

Connect each source

Go to Project → Settings → Connectors. You’ll see a card for each Google source.

Google Search Console

1. On the Google Search Console card, click Sign in with Google.
2. Choose the Google account that has Owner or Full User access to your GSC property.
3. Review the requested read-only access and click Allow.
4. A property picker appears, listing every GSC site your account can access. Select the property that matches your project’s canonical domain and confirm.

The connector flips to Connected and the first sync starts immediately.

Google Analytics 4

1. On the Google Analytics 4 card, click Sign in with Google.
2. Choose a Google account with Viewer access (or higher) to the GA4 property.
3. Approve the read-only (analytics.readonly) access.
4. A property picker lists your GA4 properties. Pick the one to sync.

Pick your marketing-site property, not an app or auth property

A common mistake is selecting an app, login, or admin-dashboard GA4 property instead of the one for the marketing/content site you’re auditing. Many accounts have several GA4 properties; the wrong one fills your weighting with app or auth traffic that has nothing to do with the pages being crawled, and your findings look mis-prioritized. If the landing pages in your traffic data don’t match the URLs in your crawl, you picked the wrong property — disconnect and reconnect the right one.

If you see an “unverified app” screen

While Google completes its review of the VisibilityIQ application, you may briefly see a caution screen (“Google hasn’t verified this app”). This is VisibilityIQ’s own application and is safe to proceed through: click Advanced, then Go to VisibilityIQ (unsafe). Once Google’s review finishes, this screen disappears for everyone.

What happens after connecting

VisibilityIQ begins syncing data from GSC and GA4 immediately. The first sync may take a few minutes. Once complete, your project dashboard shows:

• Search performance — clicks, impressions, CTR, and position from GSC, overlaid on crawl findings.
• Traffic data — landing page sessions and conversions from GA4.
• Index coverage — which pages Google has indexed, which it’s excluded, and why.

GSC data syncs daily. GA4 data syncs daily. You can trigger a manual sync from the Connectors page.

Revoking access

The connection is read-only and you can revoke it at any time, two ways:

• In VisibilityIQ — open Settings → Connectors and click Disconnect on the Google card. This drops the stored token.
• In your Google Account — go to myaccount.google.com → Security → Third-party access, select VisibilityIQ, and remove its access.

Disconnecting doesn’t delete the data already synced; reconnecting picks up where the last sync left off.

Troubleshooting

If the property picker shows no properties, the Google account you signed in with doesn’t hold access to any GSC site or GA4 property. Sign out and reconnect with the account that owns the property — confirm your GSC access at search.google.com/search-console or your GA4 access at analytics.google.com.

If you see a 403 Access denied error, your Google account has only Restricted access on the GSC property — GSC requires Owner or Full User to expose search analytics. Ask the property owner to upgrade your role, then reconnect.

See Connector troubleshooting for more error codes and fixes.