Understand
How this site shows up in Google Search
Search Console counts the queries Google showed and the clicks those results earned. The read runs on this server, and only after a service account is allowed on the property.
Search Console not connected yet
No Search Console environment variables are set, so this server does not call Google.
The Live page’s GA4 variables are separate. Copy that service account into the variables below if you want to reuse it, and add the same email as a user in Search Console.
- In Google Cloud, enable the Google Search Console API. Create a service account and a JSON key. Keep that file off git.
- In Search Console, open the property for this site. Go to Settings, then Users and permissions, then Add user. Paste the service account’s client_email. Restricted permission is enough to read.
- Set SEARCH_CONSOLE_SITE_URL to the property, exactly. A domain property is sc-domain:blackboxpersonalization.com. A URL-prefix property is https://www.blackboxpersonalization.com/, including the trailing slash when Search Console shows one.
- Set the key with SEARCH_CONSOLE_SERVICE_ACCOUNT_JSON (the whole JSON file, as one line) or with SEARCH_CONSOLE_CLIENT_EMAIL and SEARCH_CONSOLE_PRIVATE_KEY. In Vercel, keep PEM newlines as the two characters \n.
- Redeploy. Until the site URL and a readable key are both present, this page does not call Google.
How to read the report
The window is 28 days and stops three days before today. Search Console marks those days final late, and a newer day can still move.
Clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position describe Google Search only. Analytics realtime counts every visit. A search click and an analytics session are different events.
Average position is weighted by impressions. A simple average of the daily positions would give a quiet day the same weight as a busy one.
This page reads Search Console on the server. It does not read this browser, and it does not post a beacon of its own. The consent switch still governs ordinary page-view measurement on the rest of the site.
What each metric is
- Clicks
- A person chose a result that belongs to this property.
- Impressions
- A result from this property was shown. Seeing a result and clicking it are counted apart.
- CTR
- Click-through rate. Clicks divided by impressions, shown as a percent.
- Average position
- Where the result sat on the Google page. 1 is the top. A smaller number is closer to the top.
- Query
- The words Google says the person searched. Rare queries are left out of the list.
- Page
- The URL Google showed. On this host the table keeps the path.
Where else this site talks about search
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