About search query discrepancy correction in Google Search Console data

To protect user privacy, Google Search Console doesn’t show very rare search queries in its results. It omits them completely when the “Search query” dimension is used either in a query or as a filter.

If a site brings a significant number of these types of searches, you’ll see significant discrepancies in your reporting as a result.

Correcting discrepancies

Supermetrics has a feature that aggregates anonymized searches under “Unknown search query”, including them in overall results to increase accuracy. This feature is enabled by default at the Aggregate level, and can also be enabled at the Page level. 

However, the correction feature can only be applied to the “Impressions” and “Clicks” metrics. It won’t work with the “Average position” metric, for example.

Instructions

Disable or enable anonymized search query correction in your destination.

Google Sheets

1. Open the Supermetrics sidebar.
2. Navigate to Options.
3. Select your discrepancy correction level in the dropdown next to Discrepancy correction.

Looker Studio (formerly Data Studio)

1. Click on any report element to open Supermetrics.
2. Click the Edit icon next to the Google Search Console data source.
3. Click Edit connection.
4. Scroll down to Correction for Google discrepancies and select your correction level.

Excel

1. Open the Supermetrics sidebar.
2. Click the Options dropdown.
3. Select Correction for Google discrepancies.

Data warehouse and cloud storage destinations

Select your correction level from Correction for Google discrepancies during transfer configuration.

1. Log in to the Supermetrics Team Site.
2. In the left-hand menu, click Transfers.
3. Select the transfer you'd like to edit.
4. Under Correction for Google discrepancies, select Disabled, or adjust your correction level to Page or Aggregate.

Query Manager

1. Open Supermetrics Team Site.
2. In the left-hand menu, click Query Manager (API).
3. Select Google Search Console as your data source.
4. Under the Options dropdown, select Correction for Google discrepancy.
5. Select your setting (e.g. "Disabled”) from the dropdown menu.

Troubleshooting

If major discrepancies persist after you’ve enabled discrepancy correction, the cause might have to do with other aspects of Google Search Console. Learn more about these types of discrepancies.