Search Console: four metrics, every angle.
The Search Console dataset is small and unforgiving: four metrics, a handful of dimensions, and everything a keyword ranking report can say comes from crossing them.
- Fields
- 18
- Data source
- Google Search Console
- Names
- Standard API
See them live in the Google Search Console Dashboard for Data Studio.
Metrics
| Field | API name | Type | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clicks | clicks | metric | Count of clicks from Google search results that landed on the property. |
| Impressions | impressions | metric | How many times a result from the property appeared in search results a user viewed. |
| CTR | ctr | metric | Clicks divided by impressions, per row of whatever dimension you group by. |
| Position | position | metric | Average topmost position of the property for the row, across every impression. |
Dimensions
| Field | API name | Type | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Query | query | dimension | The search terms users typed. Some rare queries are omitted for privacy. |
| Page | page | dimension | The URL that appeared in results (the canonical URL, as Google resolves it). |
| Country | country | dimension | Country the search was made from, as an ISO code. |
| Device | device | dimension | Desktop, mobile or tablet. |
| Date | date | dimension | Day of the impression, in the property’s local time (Pacific). |
| Search appearance | searchAppearance | dimension | Rich-result type the listing appeared as (e.g. review snippet, FAQ) when applicable. |
| Search type | type | dimension | Web, image, video or news search; reports default to web. |
Computed in the template
| Field | API name | Type | What it measures |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brand vs generic | brand_generic | dimension | Each query classified as brand (contains your brand terms) or generic, so brand demand is never mistaken for SEO growth. |
| Keyword length type | keyword_length | dimension | Short tail (1 to 3 words) or long tail (4 or more), with the word count as its own breakdown. |
| Search intent | search_intent | dimension | Informational, navigational, commercial or transactional, inferred from the query wording. |
| Keyword cluster | keyword_cluster | dimension | Queries grouped by the topic they belong to, so a topic can be tracked as one line instead of a hundred queries. |
| Position bucket | position_bucket | dimension | Top 3, positions 4 to 10, 11 to 20, or 21 and beyond: the distribution that moves before total clicks do. |
| Keywords count | keywords_count | metric | Distinct queries with at least one impression in the period (unique keywords). |
| Impression share | impression_share | metric | A country’s impressions as a share of the total, on the location page. |
Reading the four together
The four metrics only speak when crossed with a dimension: clicks by query shows what earns traffic, impressions by page shows what earns visibility, and position by date shows movement. The classic diagnostic is CTR against position: a query ranking well with a weak CTR has a snippet problem, and that reading needs both metrics on the same row, which is exactly what a report table gives you and the Search Console interface makes you assemble by hand.