In my early days as an SEO, I had a really hard time understanding proprietary visit metrics for my company’s analytics versus Google Analytics metrics versus click data in Google Search Console. Most folks would expect that clicks in Google Search Console (GSC) versus sessions in Google Analytics (GA) would remain relatively similar. While this is the case in some instances, both were built to track user data very differently.
Let’s start with Google Search Console. While Google Search Console has quickly become an exciting tool that lets us compare MoM, YoY or general PoP organic data easily, it is also built to solely give us data to compare clicks and impressions. Let me be very clear: a click is a result of specific search queries serving impressions for your website/page. The click-through-rate is deemed by a single click selection from a search query.
Okay, we have that established. Let’s talk about Google Analytics. When we look at organic data in Google Analytics, a visit/session is counted in a 30 minute window (by default). Whatever a user does in this 30 minute window is one session. They can leave and come back within that 30 minutes, and guess what? It is still one session (*unless they come back via a different campaign). That is why we see clicks in GSC higher than sessions in GA more commonly than we see sessions higher in GA than clicks in GSC. We can see the opposite happen if a user leaves a site (still within a 30 minute window) and *come back via a different campaign OR comes back after a time-based session expiration.
If you think you’re getting inaccurate data via GSC and GA, talk to your dedicated SEO to see about moving the default timeframe in Google Analytics from 30 minutes to a higher or lower timeframe. This will not solve the discrepancy, but it could lower the margin between the two tools (if that’s what you care about).