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How to Set Up Google Search Console and Google Analytics

If you want to know how your website is actually performing, you need two free tools: Google Search Console and Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Search Console shows you how Google sees your site — what pages are indexed, what’s ranking, and what’s broken. GA4 shows you what happens once someone actually lands on your site — where they go, what they do, and whether they convert or bounce.

Neither one costs anything, and setup takes about 15 minutes total. Here’s how to do it.

Why You Need Both, Not Just One

Search Console and GA4 answer different questions:

  • Search Console tells you how you’re found.
  • GA4 tells you what happens after.

If you only set up one, you’re missing half the picture — you’ll either know you’re getting traffic with no idea what it’s doing on your site, or know what your visitors are doing with no idea how they found you in the first place.

Setting Up GA4

  1. Go to analytics.google.com and sign in.
  2. Click Admin (the gear icon, bottom left).
  3. Under Account, click Create Account if you don’t already have one.
  4. Under Property, click Create Property and enter your website’s name, time zone, and currency.
  5. Set up a data stream. For your website, choose Web, enter your site’s URL, and GA4 will generate a tracking snippet (a Global Site Tag, or gtag.js).
  6. Install that snippet on your site.
    • If you’re on WordPress, a plugin is the easiest way to install this snippet. My favorite is SEOPress, but popular SEO plugins like Yoast and Rank Math can do it too.
    • If you’re comfortable editing your website’s theme files, you can add this snippet in your <head> element.
  7. Confirm it’s working. GA4’s Realtime report (under Reports) should show your own visit within a minute or two of loading your site.

Setting Up Google Search Console

  1. Go to search.google.com/search-console and sign in with a Google account.
  2. Click Add Property.
    • A Domain property tracks your entire site across http, https, www, and non-www versions all at once, so you’re not missing data split across variants. It will require you to have access to your hosting to create a new DNS record.
    • A URL prefix is easier and will get you most of the data you need, but it will only cover one version of your site (www or non-www for example). If you’re not sure which URL to use, open your homepage and copy/paste the URL that is served there.
  3. Verify ownership.
    • Domain properties verify through a DNS TXT record added at your domain registrar. Your registrar’s support docs will walk you through exactly where to paste it.
    • For URL prefixes, there are several ways to verify. The easiest is using your Google Analytics account.
  4. Once verified, give it a day or two to start populating data. Google Search Console is notoriously slow to update, so if your site is brand new it may take longer for data to appear.

How to Link Search Console and GA4 Together

Linking GA4 and GSC is a separate step that combines your data in one place for deeper analysis.

By pulling your Search Console query and landing page data directly into your GA4 reports, you can see what someone searched for, and what they did once they landed on your site, all in one place.

Before you start: you’ll need to be using the same Google account for both — specifically, one that’s a verified owner in Search Console and has Editor access or higher in GA4. If those don’t match, the link option won’t be available.

  1. In your GA4 property, click Admin (the gear icon, bottom left).
  2. Under Property, click Product Links, then Search Console Links.
  3. Click Link, top right.
  4. Click Choose accounts and select the Search Console property you want to connect. Each Search Console property can only be linked to one GA4 property at a time.
  5. Click Confirm.
  6. Select the web data stream you want to link it to, then click Next.
  7. Review the summary and click Submit. You should see a confirmation that the link was created.

One last step people often miss: the new Search Console reports don’t automatically show up in your GA4 sidebar. Go to Reports → Library, find the Search Console collection (it’ll be marked “Unpublished”), click the three-dot menu, and click Publish. That adds a Search Console section to your Reports navigation so you’re not digging through Library every time you want to check it.

How to Grant Someone Access to Your GSC and GA4 Data

If you’re working with an SEO consultant, an agency, or anyone else who needs to see your data, you don’t have to hand over your Google login. Both tools let you add someone as a user with their own permissions, tied to their own Google account, that you can revoke at any time.

Adding a user to Google Search Console

  1. Open your property in Search Console.
  2. Go to Settings (left sidebar) → Users and permissions.
  3. Click Add user.
  4. Enter their email address.
  5. Choose a permission level:
    • Owner gives them the same access you have, including changing settings, adding and removing people, or deleting your entire property.
    • Full: has view rights to all data and can take some actions, like submitting sitemaps.
    • Restricted: has view rights to all data, but cannot take actions like sending a indexing request or submitting sitemaps.
      • If you are setting up access to do an SEO audit with me, Restricted is perfectly fine.
      • If you’re an SEO retainer client, I’ll need Full access.
  6. Click Add.

Adding a user to Google Analytics

  1. Open your property in Google Analytics.
  2. Click Admin (the gear icon, bottom left).
  3. Under Property, click Property Access Management.
    • If you choose Account Access Management instead you grant access to every property in your account. This isn’t an issue for small sites that only have one property, but if you have multiple properties it’s safer to only allow access to what’s needed.
  4. Click the blue + icon in the top top right, then Add Users.
  5. Enter their email address.
  6. Choose a role:
    • Administrator gives full control of the account, including managing other users — not necessary to hand over for most audit or consulting work.
    • Editor can edit all data and settings but can’t manage users.
    • Marketer and Analyst add specific editing rights on top of viewing (audiences, key events, explorations) — more than most consultants need.
    • Viewer sees report data and configuration settings, which is all that’s needed to pull the reports and CSVs an audit requires.
      • If you’re setting up access to do an SEO audit with me, Viewer is perfectly fine.
      • If you’re an SEO retainer client, I’ll need Marketer access at minimum.
  7. Check Notify new users by email if you want them to get an automatic heads-up.
  8. Click Add.

How to Remove Someone’s Access From GSC and GA4

Removing someone from your accounts is also simple, and you can find the option in the same menu you used to add them. But if it’s been a while since you added them, here’s a refresher on how to remove someone’s access.

Removing a user from Google Search Console

  1. Open your property in Search Console.
  2. Go to Settings (left sidebar) → Users and permissions.
  3. Find the person in the list.
  4. Click the ⋮ (three-dot menu) next to their name.
  5. Click Remove user.
  6. Confirm.

Removing a user from GA4

  1. Open your property in Google Analytics.
  2. Click Admin (the gear icon, bottom left).
  3. Under Property, click Property Access Management.
  4. Find the person in the list, check the box next to their name.
  5. Click the trash/delete icon at the top.
  6. Confirm.

Once someone is removed, their access is revoked immediately. There is no waiting period or acknowledgement required on their end.

Frequently Asked Questions

Both, if you want a full picture of your performance. Search Console shows discoverability and rankings; GA4 shows on-site behavior. They answer different questions and neither one substitutes for the other.

Yes. Both tools are entirely free — tracking, reporting, and adding users all cost nothing.

Search Console’s DNS verification can take anywhere from a few minutes to about 48 hours, depending on how quickly your domain registrar updates. HTML file or meta tag verification is usually instant. GA4 starts tracking immediately once the snippet is live on your site.

In your GA4 property, go to Admin → Product Links → Search Console Links, click Link, and select the Search Console property you want to connect.

Note: The two accounts need to be verified under the same Google account — a verified owner in Search Console, with Editor access or higher in GA4 — for the link option to appear.

Once you’ve linked the two properties (see above), Search Console data doesn’t show up automatically — go to Reports → Library, find the Search Console collection, and publish it. That adds a dedicated Search Console section to your GA4 reports so the data is actually visible, not just connected in the background.

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