Clicks in Google Search Console have fallen to near zero but Google Analytics shows no drop in traffic

Question

There is a considerable difference between Google search console and Google analytics data for traffic report. Within a short period, the traffic drops to almost zero in Google search console while in Google analytics it is consistent and high.

Here is the Google Analytics overview report:

Google Search Console report for the same time period:

What could the reason be and how can I fix it?

Answer 1

Google Search Console does not give you any traffic report. What it shows are impressions and clicks which differs from Google Analytics users/sessions.

A link URL records an impression when it appears in a search result for a user. Whether or not the link must actually be scrolled into view or otherwise visible depends on the type of search element that contains the link, as described later.

Different metrics and data

Nevertheless, you could think that a click can be considered as a visit to your site but we are talking about two independent tools so data can be different. Those are the main reasons:

• Search Console does some additional data processing—for example, to handle duplicate content and visits from robots—that may cause your stats to differ from stats listed in other sources.
• Some tools, such as Google Analytics, track traffic only from users who have enabled JavaScript in their browser.
• Google Analytics tracks visits only to pages which include the correctly configured Analytics Javascript code. If pages on the site don't have the code, Analytics will not track visits to those pages. Visits to pages without the Analytics tracking code will, however, be tracked in Search Console if users reach them via search results or if Google crawls or otherwise discovers them.

Some tools define "keywords" differently. For example:

• The Keywords page in Search Console displays the most significant words Google found on your site.
• The Keywords tool in Google Adwords displays the total number of user queries for that keyword across the web.
• Analytics uses the term "keywords" to describe both search engine queries and AdWords paid keywords.
• The Search Console Search Analytics page lists shows the total number of keyword search queries in which your page's listing was seen in search results, and this is a smaller number. Also, Search Console rounds search query data to one or two significant digits.