Where the data comes from
Every number comes from Google Search Console, with read-only access. The reports cover Google web search.
How fresh is it?
- Search Console runs about 3 days behind. Google marks a day as final about three days after it. The reports end at the newest final day, so the latest days are not in them. Only Pos.now also uses the newest preliminary day, which is not final and can still change. That is how Google publishes its data, and it is not an error.
- Google can revise recent days. To keep your numbers right, a day is fetched again on every refresh until it is six days old, so it settles to its final values. Which page ranks for which query (the top ranking page) is fetched only once, when a day is six days old, so the newest six days or so are left out of it.
- Data is refreshed automatically, at least once a day. There is nothing to press. If no one with access to a site uses Susanna Dashboard for 30 days, it waits; the days it missed are fetched as soon as someone is back, as far back as Google’s 16 months reach.
The newest day of data is the one Pos.now uses. See Metrics explained.
How far back does it go?
Google Search Console keeps 16 months of data and then deletes it. When you connect a site, the last 16 months that Google still has are fetched, so your reports reach as far back as Google’s do. Year-over-year comparisons need at least a year of history.
What Google leaves out
Rare searches are hidden
Google does not report searches that are so rare that they could identify a person. These are called anonymized queries. Their clicks and impressions are counted in your totals, but the queries themselves are not in any table.
This is why the clicks in the queries table can add up to less than your total clicks. The difference is the share of clicks that come from searches Google does not report. It is often large for sites that get many long, unusual searches.
A limit of rows per day
Google returns at most 50,000 rows of query data per day for each site. Very large sites may not see every combination of query and page.
Only web search
The reports count Google web search. Other search types, such as images, video, news and Discover, are separate in Search Console and are not mixed into these numbers.
Why numbers can differ from Search Console
You may find small differences between a report and what Search Console shows. The usual reasons:
- The latest days are still settling. Compare the same, older dates in both places.
- Hidden searches. The queries table is the part of your traffic that Google reports by query. The total is larger.
- How totals are worked out. CTR and position for a period are calculated from the totals of the period, and position gives more weight to the days with more impressions, the way Search Console does it.
- Days follow Google’s clock. Search Console counts a day in Pacific Time, and the reports use the same days.
- Different filters. Search Console may have a country, device or page filter switched on that the report does not.
Tip: if a number still looks wrong, see Troubleshooting first.