GA4’s New Users and Google Search Console Click: Difference, How to Read, When to refer

• Amol Ghemud
• GA4’s New Users and Google Search Console Click: Difference, How to Read, When to refer
• Published: November 7, 2024

Contributors: Amol Ghemud ABCD
Published: November 7, 2024

Summary

For SEO reporting, GSC should be used as the primary source for search performance metrics (impressions, clicks, CTR), while GA4 should be leveraged for on-site engagement and user interaction insights. Align both data sets with complementary metrics like conversion rates and organic traffic trends to provide a comprehensive view of SEO efforts.

When evaluating the success of your SEO efforts, two primary tools come into play: Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Google Search Console (GSC). However, these platforms often show different numbers for what seem like similar metrics, such as new users and clicks. This discrepancy can be confusing. Let’s break down what these metrics represent and how they should be interpreted.

GA4 New Users vs. GSC Clicks

• GA4 New Users: Represents the number of first-time visitors to your site during a specific timeframe. GA4 tracks users based on cookies or user ID, so returning users who clear their cookies or switch devices may be counted as new users.

1. Focus: Comprehensive web analytics across multiple channels.
2. Source: Data is collected through JavaScript tracking code installed on your website
3. Traffic Included: All traffic sources, including organic search, paid search, social media, referral links, direct visits, etc.

• GSC Clicks: Measures the number of times users clicked on your website link in Google Search results. This metric counts initial clicks and does not account for whether users stayed on the page or interacted with it.

1. Focus: Primarily on SEO and search performance
2. Source: Data is collected directly from Google’s index and search results
3. Traffic Included: Only organic search traffic from Google.

Should GSC Clicks and GA4 New Users Match?

No, the metrics from GSC and GA4 won’t match because they track different types of data:

• GSC Clicks: Only include users who clicked on your site from Google’s organic search results.
• GA4 New Users: Include all unique visitors from various traffic sources, not limited to organic search.

How To Track User Interactions On GA4 and GSC ?

While GSC and GA4 track different aspects of user interactions, you can align certain metrics to get a comprehensive view of your organic campaigns:

•  Organic Traffic Segmentation in GA4: Isolate organic traffic to analyze user behavior specific to your SEO efforts.

• Clicks (GSC) vs. Click Events fromOrganic Search Sessions (GA4): Both metrics indicate the number of users who clicked on your site from search results.

• Click Through Rate (CTR),  (GSC) vs. Bounce Rate (GA4): High CTR with a high bounce rate might indicate that users are clicking but not finding what they expected.

• Impressions (GSC) vs. New Users (GA4): Both metrics can help you understand how well your site is being discovered by new users.

How To Collect and Compare Reporting From GA4 and GSC ?

First, filter the traffic source to ‘organic’ in GA4 from the default ‘all channels‘ view. This allows for a direct comparison with GSC, which only includes organic search results, whereas GA4 reports on all channels by default.

1. The default report view in GA4 provides a comprehensive overview of all users (organic, direct, referral, paid ) interacting with the website, regardless of their originating channels.

Source: GA4

2. Filtered report of organic traffic, selectable via the “Add comparison” feature.

Source: GA4

Since New Users in GA4 refers to unique first-time visitors, it should not be directly compared to Clicks (the number of times your site’s link is clicked from Google search results) in GSC.

Using sessions from organic traffic in GA4 to compare with clicks in GSC can directly measure the effectiveness of organic search traffic. A session in GA4 represents a group of user interactions with your website within a given timeframe. 

Components of sessions include pageviews (each time a page is loaded), e-commerce transactions (purchases made on your site), and events (user interactions like clicks, form submissions, etc.). Therefore, click events from organic sessions in GA4 can be compared with clicks in GSC.

3. Traffic acquisition (Session)  reporting for the organic channel, by default, includes “All events”.

Source: GA4

4. Traffic acquisition (Session)  reporting for the organic channel, filtered to “Click events”.

Source: GA4

5. The default view of the GSC performance report for search results displays total clicks, impressions, CTR, and average organic position.

Source: GSC

However, discrepancies between GA4 organic click (~12K) events and GSC clicks (~35K) can still be observed.

Why the Discrepancy? 

Several factors contribute to the differences between GA4 and GSC metrics:

Click Recording:

• GSC: Records a click for every page view, meaning if a user clicks multiple times within a session, each click is counted separately.
• GA4: Records one click per session, regardless of how many times a user clicks within that session

Session Handling:

• GSC: Clicks are counted individually, leading to a higher number of clicks compared to GA4.
• GA4: Clicks are tied to sessions, so multiple clicks within a session are counted as one session.

Tracking Method Differences: 

• GSC: Records every click on your link, regardless of what happens after the click. This means that if a user clicks on a link to your site but is redirected to another page or lands on an error page (like a 404 error), GSC will still count that click as a valid interaction.
• GA4: Tracks user visits based on successful page loads. If a user clicks on a link but is redirected or encounters an error page, GA4 may not register that visit to the intended page. This is because GA4 relies on the page view event being triggered, which does not occur if the user does not reach the intended content.

Cross-Device Visits and Cookie Management: 

• Users clearing cookies or using multiple devices may be counted multiple times as new users in GA4, while GSC tracks only the initial click. 
• Due to GA4’s reliance on cookies and device identifiers to track users, if a user visits your site on a mobile device and then again on a desktop without being recognized as the same user (for example, if they are not logged in or if cookies are not shared across devices), GA4 will count each visit as a new user.

Bot Traffic Filtering: 

• GSC: More effective at filtering out bot traffic than GA4. GSC automatically excludes known bots and spiders from its click data, which helps ensure that the reported clicks reflect genuine user interactions. 
• GA4:  There is a feature that automatically excludes traffic from known bots and spiders, the effectiveness of this filtering can depend on how well the filter settings are configured. If GA4’s filter settings are not fine-tuned, it may still include some non-human traffic in its reported new user numbers. . This can lead to inflated user counts, as bot traffic may not be adequately filtered out.

Data Sampling and Collection Lag:

GA4 does use sampled data for reports when dealing with larger datasets. This means that for extensive data queries, GA4 may analyze only a subset of the total data to generate reports, resulting in fewer users being reported in GA4 compared to the total clicks shown in GSC.

 In contrast, GSC generally provides unsampled data. This means that the clicks and impressions reported in GSC reflect the total interactions without sampling.

GSC is more focused on search engine performance and SEO, while GA4 offers a broader view of user interactions and website performance across various channels.

Learn More About the Data mismatch between GA4 and Google Search Console. 

How to Align Data?

1. GSC: Focuses on tracking clicks at the page level, giving a granular view of user interactions.
2. GA4: Focuses on sessions and user engagement, providing a broader view of user behavior.

• Event Tracking: Set up click events in GA4 to match GSC clicks more closely.
• Custom Reports: Create custom reports in GA4 to analyze clicks and sessions side by side.

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Conclusion: Should GSC or GA4 Be Your Source of Truth?

Combine both for a complete view. 

• GSC for SEO: Use it to monitor clicks, impressions, CTR, and keyword performance. It’s ideal for understanding how users engage with your site in search results.
• GA4 for On-Site User Behavior: Use it to measure how users interact with your site post-click, including engagement, page views, and conversion tracking.

For comprehensive SEO reporting, rely on GSC for search performance insights and GA4 for understanding user behavior after users land on your site. Integrating insights from both can help you see how your SEO efforts drive not just traffic, but also meaningful user engagement.

About the Author

Amol Ghemud

Optimizer in Chief

Amol has helped catalyse business growth with his strategic & data-driven methodologies. With a decade of experience in the field of marketing, he has donned multiple hats, from channel optimization, data analytics and creative brand positioning to growth engineering and sales.