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Webmaster Tools and Analytics, Explained

If you are looking for Google Webmaster Tools, it still exists. It was renamed Google Search Console in 2015, and most guides written since call it a name you did not search for. That single rename is why this topic is so confusing to look up.

Here is what each tool is, what it can and cannot tell you, and which one to open first.

Google Search Console (formerly Webmaster Tools)

Search Console is the only tool that sees the search results page. It reports how often your site appeared, which search terms triggered it, roughly where you ranked, and whether anyone clicked. It also reports whether Google could crawl and index a page at all.

It stops watching the moment somebody lands on your site. It is free, and it requires you to verify that you own the domain.

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Google Analytics (GA4)

Analytics is the only tool that sees your website. It picks up after the click: which pages people opened, how long they stayed, what they clicked, whether they started a form and whether they finished it.

It has no idea a search ever happened, and it has not shown you keyword data since 2011. If you came here looking for the terms people searched, that is Search Console, not Analytics.

Which one do you actually need?

Both, and not as a hedge. They watch opposite sides of the same click and neither can see the other's side. The practical rule:

Were we found? Search Console.
What happened next? Analytics.

The two will never show matching numbers, and they are not supposed to. We wrote up why, with real figures and screenshots from a live property, in Google Analytics vs Webmaster Tools.

Connecting the two

Linking Search Console to Analytics lets you follow one search term from the moment it appeared in results through to what that visitor actually did. Most sites have both installed and have never connected them, which leaves the most useful report in either tool switched off.

The free tools worth having

Google Search Console — impressions, queries, position, indexing
Google Analytics 4 — behaviour, events, conversions
Google Tag Manager — deploy and manage tracking without editing code
Bing Webmaster Tools — the same picture for Bing, and it is quick to set up

All four are free. The work is not installing them, it is reading them correctly.

Not sure what your own numbers are saying?

Most sites we look at have the tools installed and are still counting nothing useful: conversions that never fire, a form that no one can complete, or two tags double counting the same visit.

Request a free site analysis and we will tell you what your tracking is actually recording.