Search API Connector Documentation

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Import Google Search Console Data to Sheets

Last Updated On
byAna
< Knowledge Base
premium

In this guide, we’ll walk through how to pull Google Search Console data data directly into Google Sheets, using the API Connector add-on for Sheets.

Contents

Before You Begin

Click here to install the API Connector add-on from the Google Marketplace.

Part 1: Connect to the Google Search Console API

The easiest way to get started with the Google Search Console API is through API Connector’s built-in integration.

  1. Select Google Search Console from the drop-down list of applications
    googlesearchconsole-application
  2. Under Authorization, click Connect to Google Search Console
    googlesearchconsole-authorization
  3. You will be directed to google.com and asked to allow API Connector to view your Google Search Console data. Click Allow.google-search-console-img2
  4. You’ll then be returned to your Google Sheet, and can verify that your Google Search Console connection is active.

Part 2: Pull Data from Google Search Console to Sheets

Now that we’re connected, let’s pull some data into Sheets.

  1. Under Endpoint, choose the”Get search analytics” endpoint.
    googlesearchconsole-endpoints
  2. Under siteUrl, fill in your site domain using the syntax https%3A%2F%2Fmixedanalytics.com. Make sure to encode it or the API won’t recognize it. If you’re using a domain property, enter it like sc-domain:mixedanalytics.com. If you aren’t sure of your exact URL, run a request to the /sites endpoint first, as that endpoint will return the correct URL.
    sc-domain:mixedanalytics.com
  3. Now fill in a date range (required), and any optional parameters. Here I’ve selected query to retrieve a list of keywords for my site.
  4. Set a destination sheet, name your request, and hit Run.
    googlesearchconsole-response

Part 3: Create a Custom API Request

Alternatively, you can run a custom request instead of using API Connector’s built-in integration, using any of the data points shown in Google Search Console’s API documentation. Here is an example setup:

  • Request method: POST
  • Request URL: https://searchconsole.googleapis.com/webmasters/v3/sites/sc-domain:mixedanalytics.com/searchAnalytics/query
  • OAuth: Google Search Console
  • Headers: Key = Content-Type, Value = application/json
  • Request body: {"dimensions":["QUERY"],"startDate":"2021-12-01","endDate":"2021-12-31","rowLimit":1000}

Part 4: Handle Pagination

By default, Google Search Console will send 1,000 records unless you use the rowLimit and startRow parameters as described in their documentation.
google-search-console-pagination

In API Connector you can loop through these pages automatically with the following settings:

  • Pagination type: offset-limit body
  • Offset body parameter: startRow
  • Limit body parameter: rowLimit
  • Limit value: 25000
  • Run until: choose when to stop fetching data
    google-search-console-pagination-offset-limit-body

Part 5: API Documentation

Official API documentation: https://developers.google.com/webmaster-tools/v1/api_reference_index

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25 thoughts on “Import Google Search Console Data to Sheets”

  3. Hi there, just purchased and this looks great!

    With my first test I noticed that only the top 1000 keywords / rows popped into Sheets. Is it possible to get the complete data set and not just the first 1000 rows? (still learning)

    Thanks for your time.

    Reply

    • Figured it out by checking the Google resource page listed and testing some different options… however a new wrinkle has popped up.

      We work with some large websites that often go well beyond 25,000 rows of data in a given day / month. Some sites have over 100,000 pages.

      Can you help me to understand how to run the following:

      All Queries (by Page) with a start and end date… but pulling ALL rows … even if it goes beyond the 25,000 row limit.

      I am hoping a multi query type call is the answer.. but again.. I am a beginner and still learning the ropes 🙂

      Thank you for your time and patience. This is super cool.

      Reply

      • That’s awesome you figured it out, I just edited the article to make it more clear, too.

        Google limits each batch to 25,000 records, so to get more you need to pull multiple batches. Each batch has a start and end point defined by the “startRow” and “rowLimit” parameters. API Connector doesn’t currently have a preset pagination option for this, so we’ll use the “Multiple request bodies” function to achieve something similar. You’d set it up by pasting the following into the Request body input box:
        {"startDate":"2021-01-01","endDate":"2021-10-31","dimensions":["query"],"startRow":0,"rowLimit":25000}
        :::BREAK:::
        {"startDate":"2021-01-01","endDate":"2021-10-31","dimensions":["query"],"startRow":25000,"rowLimit":25000}
        :::BREAK:::
        {"startDate":"2021-01-01","endDate":"2021-10-31","dimensions":["query"],"startRow":50000,"rowLimit":25000}

        (and so on…)
        By doing this you can theoretically get all rows, but as you can see you have to manually add in the request bodies, for now there’s no “get all” option. I also think you might have trouble because Sheets slows down once you start pulling in so many records, I’m not sure it can really handle multiple sets of 100,000+ records. But hopefully this helps you test what’s possible. Just shoot me a message here or over at support and I’ll be happy to help further.
        Update: You can now do this automatically with our offset-limit body pagination option.

  4. This worked great as a starting point! For very large sites I can pull a shorter time period. I tried 100k by Page, Query and it seemed to work ok.

    Thanks again.

    Reply

  5. Great extension!
    I want to build a sheet that looks up how much Discover-traffic, Search-traffic and News-traffic a URL has gotten. I want to be able to paste a list of URL:s into the sheet and get the data for each URL.
    I think I’m half way there, but I don’t know how to tell the API to look for the URL in a specific cell of my sheet?
    I guess I need to replace “expression”:”jul” in the code below…

    {"startDate":"2021-12-01","endDate":"2021-12-31","dimensions":["page"],"type":"discover","dimensionFilterGroups":[{"filters":[{"dimension":"page","operator":"contains","expression":"jul"}]}],"rowLimit":3000}

    Reply

  8. Hey! I’ve tried the multiple request bodies as outlined in the conversation with Daryl above but I continue to be limited to 5000 records in return. Has Search console changed their record limits?

    Reply

    • You should be able to get 25,000 records in one go. Can you add in a row limit of say 6000 to your request? If you still only get 5000 records then, it may be that your data doesn’t contain more records than that.

      Reply

  9. Thank you so much for this! This is so cool and fun to play around with. I have a question around aggregating queries per page, but limiting the number of rows returned per page based on click count..

    I figured out the aggregation per page part (thanks to your guide!) but I want to only return rows with clicks > or = 1 (so no queries with 0 clicks come in, even if they get impressions). Is there a way to do that?

    Here’s what I’ve got so far:
    {"startDate":"2021-12-01","endDate":"2022-02-28","dimensions":["query","page"],"dimensionFilterGroups":[{"filters":[{"dimension":"page","operator":"contains","expression":"/path/page-example/"}]}],"rowLimit":3000}

    Where can I put the click value > 0 (if it’s possible)? Thanks for this amazing guide!

    Reply

    • Thank you, I’m glad you are having fun! 🙂 And that’s such a good question. I thought there must be a way to do this since you can add a > 0 filter in the interface, but I just checked and as far as I can tell, the API only allows filtering on dimensions (query, page, device, or country). That’s too bad, but you still have some options:
      1) simply filter out those “0” rows with a Google Sheets filter.
      2) use a JMESPath filter. Just copy/paste this expression into the JMESPath field to include only those records where clicks are greater than 0: rows[?clicks > '0']

      Reply

    • Hmm unfortunately our preset connection only enables the /auth/webmasters.readonly scope. You would need to create a custom OAuth connection that enables the /auth/webmasters scope, i.e. write access. From there you could cycle through a list of websites and delete them all with a request like DELETE https://www.googleapis.com/webmasters/v3/sites/+++siteUrls!A1:A300+++

      Reply

    • Sure, I believe you can set it up like this:
      Method: POST
      URL: https://content-searchconsole.googleapis.com/v1/urlInspection/index:inspect?alt=json
      OAuth: Google Search Console
      Headers: Accept : application/json
      Request body:{"inspectionUrl":"https://mixedanalytics.com/api-connector/","siteUrl":"sc-domain:mixedanalytics.com"}

      (the siteURL will be http://www.example.com/ for a URL-prefix property, or sc-domain:example.com for a Domain property.)

      If you’d like to reference multiple URLs from your sheet, do a multi-query request with a request body like this:
      {"inspectionUrl":"+++Setup!A1+++","siteUrl":"sc-domain:+++Setup!B1+++","languageCode":"en-US"},
      :::BREAK:::
      {"inspectionUrl":"+++Setup!A2+++","siteUrl":"sc-domain:+++Setup!B2+++","languageCode":"en-US"}
      :::BREAK:::
      {"inspectionUrl":"+++Setup!A3+++","siteUrl":"sc-domain:+++Setup!B3+++","languageCode":"en-US"}

      Let me know if that works for you!

      Reply

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