What it is and what you need
Search Console is Google’s tool where you see how your website appears in searches. To connect it in ōrbita your website has to be verified in Search Console with your Google account: ōrbita only sees the verified websites of that account.
Connect
- In Connections, on the Search Console row, press Connect.
- ōrbita explains the permission: See your Search Console data (searches, clicks, impressions and position of the websites verified in your account, and the list of those websites so you can choose yours). It is a read only permission: ōrbita cannot touch your website, your properties or your Search Console settings. Press Continue.
- Press Go to Google and choose the Google account that has your website in Search Console (it can be a different one from the one you use to log in to ōrbita). Google shows you one box per permission: leave the Search Console one ticked, or ōrbita will not be able to read the data.
- Choose the property ōrbita will read, among the verified ones of that account. Until you do, the row says CHOOSE ONE (“Connection almost ready”).
When choosing, you see two types of property:
- Domain property: includes your whole website, with and without www, http and https, and all subdomains.
- URL prefix: only includes the addresses that start exactly like that.
If you have both, choose the domain one.
Who can connect
The connection belongs to the company, not to each person: the Web tab, your agent and the whole team read the same one. Anyone with access to the company can connect it; if someone else connects later, they replace the previous one. Changing property (Change property, in the Search Console settings) is done by whoever connected. Disconnect is done by whoever connected or someone with Admin level: ōrbita stops reading that website’s data and you can connect it again whenever you want. If the connection expires, the row says when and asks you to Reconnect; if the account loses access to the property, ōrbita asks you to choose another.
The Web tab of Metrics
In Metrics (Spanish), the Web tab shows the data of the property you chose, with the same period selector as the rest of Metrics (7, 28 or 90 days).
- Four indicators: Clicks (visits to your website from Google), Impressions (times you appeared on Google), CTR (of those who see you, how many click through) and Average position on Google (the lower, the better). Each one is compared with the previous period of the same length.
- Evolution, by days or by weeks.
- What people searched for: the Google searches in which your website appeared, with a search box to find a specific one.
- Pages: the pages of your website that appeared on Google.
- Filters by device (mobile, desktop, tablet) and by country.
The data arrives with the delay Google publishes it with. ōrbita takes the last complete day, and the screen says “Data up to…” with its date. The first time you connect, “We are fetching your Google data” may appear until ōrbita receives the first batch. ōrbita reads Search Console live and reuses what it read for 1 hour.
Content ideas
Below the indicators, ōrbita proposes up to 5 content ideas: searches in which Google often shows you but hardly anyone clicks. They are the ones with a minimum of impressions (30 impressions per 28 days, adjusted to the period) and, in addition, either a CTR below 2% or a position between 5 and 20, where a piece of content can still climb. With Add to FAQ they go to your frequently asked questions so that ōrbita takes them into account when proposing content. If there are no searches with a clear margin right now, it says so and looks again with the new data.
What it does not do
- It does not change anything on your website or in Search Console: it is read only.
- It does not replace an analytics tool: it sees how people find you on Google, not what they do on your website afterwards.
- If your website uses link tracking, the clicks on those links are seen separately, in their Metrics card.
With your agent
If you have connected your agent with the permission to read metrics, it can read the Search Console data (clicks, impressions, position, searches, pages and countries) for your reports.
Who it is for
Search Console is included in the Satellite, Star and Galaxy plans. In Satellite, like the rest of Metrics, it goes back up to the last 30 days.