Google Search Console

Overview

Connect your Google Search Console property to understand how your organic search performance relates to your AI visibility. Track which search queries drive traffic, monitor ranking positions, and correlate organic data with AI mentions.

What You Get

• Search queries — See which queries show your site in Google results.
• Click and impression data — Understand real search traffic volume for each query.
• Average CTR and position — Track organic ranking performance over time.
• Country and device breakdowns — See how search performance varies by market and device type.
• First-party Google AI visibility — Search Console now reports how often your pages appear in Google's AI Overviews and AI Mode (impressions, clicks, CTR, position per page). AEO Optima syncs this via the Search Analytics searchAppearance dimension, so you get your own AI-answer visibility straight from Google — free, with no third-party SERP connector. It feeds the Fusion Insights "AI Visibility (Search Console)" insight.
• Daily automated sync — GSC data is refreshed every day at 7AM UTC.

Prerequisites

• A verified Google Search Console property (URL prefix or domain).
• The Google account must have Restricted access or above on the property.
• Your AEO Optima plan must be Pro-Individual or above (Pro-Individual, Pro-SME, Enterprise-Brand, Enterprise-Agency, or Custom tiers).

How to Connect

1. Navigate to Settings → Google integrations.
2. Find the Google Search Console card and click Connect Search Console.
3. You'll be redirected to Google to authorize access. AEO Optima requests webmasters.readonly and userinfo.email scopes.
4. After authorization, you'll be redirected back. Pick the GSC site/property to track from the dropdown. AEO Optima suggests the best match for your project (scoring each property's URL against your project's brand name and website, marked high/medium confidence) so the right one is pre-surfaced even when the Google account exposes hundreds of properties.
5. Click Save. The first sync runs immediately (you don't wait for the next daily cron), and historical data from the past few days is imported. If you bound the wrong property, AEO Optima's binding diagnostics flag the mismatch.

Data Synced

Sync Schedule

Data is synced daily at 7AM UTC via the aeo-optima-gsc-sync background job. Google Search Console data has a processing delay of 2-3 days, so the sync window covers days 3 through 10 in the past to ensure complete data.

From 23 October 2026:

• Sync Now runs the same sync as the daily job: the search rows and the AI appearance (AI Overviews and AI Mode).
• "Last synced" means the whole window landed. If any part fails to save, the time stays where it was and the next sync tries again.
• History. A new connection, a reconnect and a newly chosen site each start with a fill of the full history Search Console keeps (about 16 months). The next daily sync pulls it a week at a time, so every past week is as complete as a live one.

GSC vs SERP Tracking

When Google Access Stops

If Google stops accepting the connection (the account lost access, its password changed, or the authorisation was revoked or expired), the daily sync switches the connection off and records the day it stopped. From 23 October 2026 the project then says Google Search Console needs reconnecting to its owners and admins, at the top of the dashboard and in the alert bell, and by email at most once a week per organisation, until someone reconnects.

To fix it, open Settings → Google integrations and click Reconnect Search Console. A reconnect keeps the site you chose, so the sync resumes without picking it again. If the account can no longer see that site, the next sync clears it and asks you to pick it again.

A connection with no site chosen a day after connecting is flagged in the alert bell the same way, until a site is picked.

Choosing a different site. The stored data does not record which site it came from. So when a project switches to a different site, its data from the old site for the last 16 months is removed first, and the next sync fills that time from the new one. Older data stays as it was. If the switch cannot finish, it says so and nothing is lost: the old site stays chosen, and its months are filled again.

Disconnecting

To disconnect, go to Settings → Google integrations → Google Search Console and click Disconnect. A confirmation dialog will appear. Your existing synced data stays until the end of its retention window — only new syncs stop. A disconnect is your own choice, so it raises no alert.

Troubleshooting