Introducing Search Console Traffic: Measured Google Clicks

Serpverse

Introducing Search Console Traffic

You're choosing between two sites for the same placement. One listing shows 18K monthly visits and the other 24K, so you lean toward the second. Both numbers are estimates, worked out from the keywords each site ranks for, and either one could be a long way from what the site really gets.

Today we're shipping Search Console traffic. A publisher can now connect Google Search Console to their listing, and the listing shows the clicks Google itself counted over the last 28 days, with the estimate kept beside it. Buyers get a measured number to go on. Publishers whose real traffic beats the model get a way to show it.

This post covers what the figure is, how to read it next to an estimate, what a publisher grants by connecting, and what keeps the number honest.

What Search Console Traffic Is

Search Console traffic is the total number of clicks Google Search sent to a site over the last 28 days, read from the publisher's own Google Search Console and shown on their listing. Google counts the clicks. Nobody models the figure, and nobody can type it in: not the publisher, and not us.

It sits beside the estimate every listing already had, and the two are different kinds of number:

Why an Estimate Wasn't Enough

Every traffic figure you can look up for a site you don't own is a model. A tool finds the keywords the site ranks for, multiplies each one's search volume by a typical click-through rate for that position, and adds the results. The estimate on our listings comes from DataForSEO and is built that way too, for one country's Google results.

Models like that are useful, and they can be a long way out. In 2022 Ahrefs checked its own estimates(opens in new tab) against the Search Console data of 1,635 websites. The median estimate was off by 49.52%. For some sites the gap was under 5%, and for others it was more than 1,000%.

For a buyer, a gap that size is the difference between a site with readers and a site without. For a publisher, it can be a listing that undersells their site by half. Until now, the estimate was the only traffic figure a listing could show. On Serpverse, a publisher can now put Google's own count next to it.

What Buyers See

A listing whose publisher has connected shows Google traffic under a Search Console mark, where other listings show "estimated traffic". Open the figure's tooltip and you get both numbers: the measured one first, with a More accurate badge and the date it was read, then the estimate.

The marketplace follows the figure you see. Min traffic filters on it, the Traffic sort orders by it, and the default Relevant sort weighs it.

Connecting is the publisher's choice, so plenty of listings will keep showing an estimate. A listing without the Search Console mark hasn't failed a check. Its publisher hasn't connected, and its estimate reads the way it always did.

How to Read the Two Numbers

The two aren't like for like, so a few habits help:

• Compare within a kind where you can. One site's 12K Google traffic and another's 15K estimated traffic cover different periods and different countries. The higher figure isn't automatically the bigger audience.
• Remember what a click total leaves out. Google counts a click(opens in new tab) when a search result sends someone to a page outside Google. Visits from other search engines, social media, newsletters and people typing the address aren't in it, so a site with a loyal direct audience has more readers than its Google traffic shows.
• Use it as the firmer check on authority. A high Domain Rating beside very few measured clicks is a clearer warning than the same gap against an estimate.

Our guide to reading publisher metrics goes through DR, the estimate and Google traffic together.

For Publishers: What You Grant

Connecting takes about a minute, from the Search Console traffic card on a listing's Manage tab. Before you're sent to Google, a summary spells out what you're agreeing to:

• Read-only access. It's Google's read-only Search Console permission. It can't change anything in your account or on your site.
• One number per listing. We read the total clicks for the sites you've listed here. Not your queries, your pages or your countries.
• Buyers see it, and it leads either way. The click total leads on your listing whether it's higher or lower than the estimate, so look at your Search Console first.
• It's ongoing until you disconnect. Verifying ownership through Search Console is a one-off check that keeps no access. This connection keeps read access, so the figure can be refreshed about once a week.
• Any Google account works. It doesn't have to be the one you sign in with, and one connection covers every listing that account owns, including sites you add later.

If the listing wasn't verified yet, connecting verifies domain ownership at the same time. If you've only just added the site to Search Console, its figure appears once Google has about four weeks of data for it. You can disconnect whenever you like, and your listings go back to the estimate. The Search Console traffic guide has the full walkthrough, including which Search Console properties count.

What Keeps the Number Honest

A measured figure is only worth more than an estimate if it can't be dressed up. Four rules do that work:

• Owners only. The Google account has to own the site's property in Search Console. Being added as a user(opens in new tab) isn't enough.
• The listed site only. On a property that covers a whole domain, we count clicks to the site that's listed, not to the domain's other subdomains.
• No frozen numbers. When a publisher disconnects, the figure comes off the listing at once. When they remove our access in their Google account instead, it comes off at the next weekly read. Either way the estimate returns, so a figure can't outlive the access behind it by more than about a week.
• No stale numbers. The figure is read again about once a week. One that hasn't been read for 35 days stops being shown until the next read succeeds.

Get Started

Search Console traffic is live now. If you sell placements, open a listing from My Websites, go to its Manage tab and connect from the Search Console traffic card. If you buy them, look for the Search Console mark on a listing's traffic figure, and use Min traffic and the Traffic sort as you did before. They now go by the best number each listing has.