GSC Helper FAQ

Thanks for using GSC Helper. In case something is unclear, take a look in this extensive FAQ document. If a question is still unanswered, please leave a comment or get in touch with stephan@searchanalyzer.io.

Feature list

Do you know all the functionalities GSC Helper is offering?

• Easily set and compare dates in GSC performance report via the context menu
• Load custom and preset RegEx filters to analyze queries and / or URLs via the context menu
• Visualize the performance report by week / month or quarter by clicking the extension logo in the „Dates“ view in GSC
• Enriched page traffic such as traffic share and folder aggregation
• Extract sample URLs from index coverage report
• Analyze the currently visited page in GSC performance report by clicking the extension logo
• Access various GSC reports via context menu links while being outside of GSC

Performance report x GSC Helper

The GSC performance reports are the core of Google Search Console. GSC Helper works with all three performance reports („normal performance report“, Discover, News). See which actions are available to you.

Context menu actions: Set dates

When you are inside Google Search Console, a right mouse button click allows you to access various „date actions“ to set dates easily.

You have the following options within „Set date„:

• Last 14 days: Will set the date to TODAY-16 days to TODAY-2 days, as Google Search Console has a two-day delay. So on the 30th of May, the date will be 14.05 to 28.05.
• Last full month: Choose this to see the performance of the last complete month. On the 30th of May, this will give you April data, as May only offers partial data right now.
• Penultimate full month: Penultimate means „the [week/month] before last month“, so in this case, you will get March data when you are selecting this time frame in May.
• Last full three months: Covers the last completely available months. Sticking to my example, this gives you 01.02 to 30.04
• Month to date: This option sets the date from the first of the current month till TODAY-2 days, due to the data delay. So you would get 01.05 to 28.05.
• Year to date: Similar to above, but 01.01 is chosen as the starting day.

Context menu actions: Compare dates

When you want to compare the performance over time, these options are available to you:

• Compare last full week vs. penultimate week: The last available complete week (Mon to Sun) is compared vs. the week before.
• Compare last 14 days vs. 14 days before: Takes the current day and calculates TODAY-16 to TODAY-2, vs. the TODAY-31 to TODAY-17, so you can easily prepare the last 14 days performance vs. the 14 days before.
• Compare last full month vs. penultimate month: Sets the date range to cover the last full month (which is usually the month before the current month), and compares it to the month before. So in May, it will be 01.04 vs. 01.03.
• Month to date vs. penultimate month to date: Month to data sets the data to 01.[current-month] to TODAY-2 days, and compares that period against the month before.
• Month to date vs. last year month to date: Month to data sets the data to 01.[current-month] to TODAY-2 days, and compares that period against a year ago.

Context menu actions: Query filters

With query filters, some pre-defined and custom (!) RegEx are applied to the performance report.

• German query filters – Questions: Adds (?:\s|^)(w(er|em|en|essen|ie|ann|o|elche|as|obei|omit|oran|ohin|obei|eshalb|arum|ieso|orauf|orum|ovor|odurch|oher|eswegen|oraus))(\s|$)|.*\?$ to find popular question terms.
• German query filters – Transactional terms: Sets the query RegEx to \b(bestell[^\s]*|ordern|kaufen|anfordern|erwerben|beziehen|besorgen|downloade?n?)\b to find words like „bestellen“
• English query filters – Questions: Filters queries for (?:^|\s)(who|what|when|where|why|how|which|whom)(?:\s|$)|.*\?$, to identify questions.
• English query filter – Transactional terms: Filters queries for \b(buy|purchase|acquire|cheap|price|order|procure|obtain|get|shop|invest|obtain)\b, to show search queries with transactional intent
• Word pattern filter: Filters for 1, 2, 3 or more than 3 word queries, or for queries including at least two digits (to find e.g. years)

Context menu actions: URL Filter

Select preset filters to analyze your traffic.

• URLs with 3+ folders: Filter for URLs with more than 3 folders
• URLs with parameters: Filters for URLs containing at least one parameter
• URLs with #: Identify sitelinks by filtering for URLs containing a #
• URLs with special characters: Shows URL that containing „non-common“ characters
• URLs ending with slash: Only shows URLs that end with a slash
• URLs not ending with slash: Shows all URLs that do not end with a slash
• URLs in root: Only surfaces URLs within the root folder

Context menu actions: Custom RegEx

• Custom RegEx: After you setup your own RegEx filters in the options menu (right mouse button click on the logo => options, or via link in the context menu), you can load the configuration

Visualize performance data by week / month / quarter

While you are within the dates tab of Google Search Console (!), a click on the extension logo will generate the chart. Otherwise, you will see either a different visualization, or a hint.

Note: When nothing happens when you click the extension logo while being in the dates tab, refresh the GSC page and try again.

Based on the selected time frame in Google Search Console, you can either visualize the data by week, month, or quarter. So ensure to first set the needed time frame, and then start the visualization.

Your options on the visualization tab

On top of the chart, you can choose which data you want to see (clicks and/or impressions), and select the time frame

Below the chart, you will find the aggregated table matching your selected data grouping. The table can be downloaded as .csv, you can copy the table, or save the chart as .png.

Enhanced page stats

While you are in the pages view of Google Search Console, a click on the extension logo will open an enhanced table. This enriched data is perfect for:

• Identifying your most important pages and folders
• Finding over- and underperforming pages and folders of your website
• Quickly filter for folders – and verify important folders as separate UR prefix properties in GSC

Stats section

• Total clicks is extracted from the GSC table. When you didn’t apply any page filter, the data is aggregated „byProperty“, so for each search max 1 click and 1 impression is counted.
• Reported clicks is the sum of all clicks within the extracted table. As the page data is shown „byPage“, a single search can result in more than 1 click, and when multiple pages are shown, in multiple impressions. That’s why the clicks coverage can be above 100% for sites with less than 1.000 ranking URLs.
• Clicks coverage is a calculated value by dividing total clicks / reported clicks. It can be above 100%, as a search can result any multiple clicks
• Reported pages is the count of pages within the table
• Reported pages with 1+ clicks is the count of pages with at least one click within the table
• Last reported page clicks shows the stats of the last row in the table. For big websites, the 1.000 sample URLs aren’t enough, so the last row can have more than 0 clicks
• Total impressions is extracted from the GSC table. This data point is aggregated „byProperty“ as long as you didn’t filter for pages.

Your configuration

To remind you of the configuration used before generating the enhanced table, the configuration is repeated here.

Table data – by URL

Within the table, we add additional data points:

• Row number is simply the row number 🙂
• Subdomain shows the subdomain of the URL
• 1st, 2nd and 3rd folder extracts and lists folder of a URL (if present)
• Slug shows the last part of the URL (limited to 30 characters)
• Clicks according to the GSC table data
• Impressions according to the GSC table data
• CTR according to the GSC table data
• Position according to the GSC table data
• Traffic Share is a calculated value. We take the total clicks (see above), and divide it by the clicks of the page
• Accumulated Traffic Share sums of the traffic share of all URLs so far. This value indicates, how many pages generate x % of your traffic

Table data – by folder

These views aggregate your data by folder – and allow you to easily filter your GSC performance report for the folder, or adding the folder as a new property (which I highly recommend for your most important folders)

• 1st, 2nd, 3rd folder displays the folder name
• Total clicks is the sum of all clicks of URLs in the respective folder
• Clicks share is a calculated value. It takes the total clicks as reported by GSC for your configuration, and divides it with the sum of clicks for the folder
• Total impressions is the sum of all impressions of URLs in the folder
• Impressions share is a calculated value. It takes the impressions as reported by GSC for your configuration, and divides it with the sum of impressions for the folder
• URL count is the sum of all URLs in the folder
• URL share divides the amount of URLs reported in your GSC configuration (max 1.000!), and divides it by the sum of URLs within the folder
• Analyze folder in GSC takes you to Google Search Console performance report, pre-filtered for the folder you want
• To folder property opens the folder as a separate URL prefix property, to deep dive into the folder (and potentially get more clicks and URLs!)

Index coverage report actions

In the index coverage report, you can extract all up to 1,000 sample URLs with just one click. The sample URLs are stored in your clipboard.

You have the following options:

• Extract sample URLs: Gives you only the URLs
• Extract sample URLs and Last crawled date: Additionally extracts the last crawled date
• Extract sample URLs, Last crawled date & source: Additionally extracts the report name, so you know where the URL was coming from

Account chooser on „not verified page“

Whenever you try to open a property you don’t have access to, GSC Helper offers an account chooser. The account chooser takes the current URL you tried to open, and generates a direct link to the same configuration in another Google profile, or switches URL property to domain property.

Given you are logged in into your private work account (which Google represents as /u/0/), and a company account (/u/1/) where all GSC properties are available, you choose „Account 2“ and, if needed, update the property type before clicking on the „Click to open“ button.

Options menu

Within the options, you can configure the so-called „GSC Deep Link“ (the default action while you are outside of Google Search Console) and make other choices.

Where do I find the options?

Perform a right mouse button click on the extension logo. Choose „options“. Alternatively, you can access the options via the context menu while being within Google Search Console.

What can I do within „Configure GSC deep link“?

The GSC deep link is the default action of the extension while you are outside the GSC. A click will open the currently visited page in GSC performance report according to your preference you defined below.

These are the options:

• Default country: Choose if you want to see „global“ or only the data for a specific country. Keep in mind, that filtering for a country will give you preciser rankings, but anonymized clicks are completely filtered out.
• Time frame: Define the default time frame to see in GSC.
• Open website as …: Choose if a website should be opened within a „URL Property“ (starting with http..), or a „Domain Property“ (starting with sc-domain: in GSC). This refers to the URL structure you verified in GSC.
• Select your metrics: Google Search Console offers four metrics (Clicks, Impressions, CTR, Position). Based on your selection, all or only some of those metrics will be active in GSC by default (when you click the GSC deep link).
• Choose Google account: This option is relevant for people using multiple Google (not Chrome!) accounts at the same time. When you, e.g., have your personal account as your primary account, and all GSC profiles are in your secondary account, pick „Second account“ in the drop-down. All GSC deep links will then include a /u/1/ in the URL. This flag opens the site in your secondary Google account (/u/0/ is your primary account).

What is „Show GSC tables in full-width“?

When you hide the sidebar in GSC, the table width is decreased (instead of using the space). When you set the value to „yes“, GSC Helper overwrites the respective .css entry and the tables are always using the complete available width.

Extension logo actions

Depending on if you are inside or outside Google Search Console, the extension logo has different functionality.

While you are inside of GSC

When you are inside Google Search Console, a click on the extension will generate vairous enriched reports, depending on the data you currently view in GSC.

When you are in the „dates“ view, a click on the extension logo will generate the performance visualization, while doing the same in „pages“ view, you will see the enriched table.

While you are outside of GSC

When you browse the web, a click on the extension logo will open the currently visited (canonical) URL in Google Search Console, based on your configuration in the options.

Context menu actions

While browsing the web, the context menu offers you various quick links to either open the current page or domain in Google Search Console reports.

Within Google Search Console, opening GSC within GSC wouldn’t make sense, so that’s why a different context menu is available to you while you are browsing within GSC. The „GSC context menu“ allows to apply filters or grab data.

• Open domain in GSC ( | domain property): The currently visited domain will be opened in GSC, either as URL property, or domain property
• Open domain in GSC performance report ( | domain property): Opens the performance report for the current domain.
• Open URL in GSC performance report ( | domain property): The currently visited URL is set as „URL is“ filter in the GSC performance report, to analyze the performance of the page. Note: Your time frame preferences according to the options are taken into account here.
• Open URL excl. parameters in GSC performance report ( | domain property): In case the currently visited URL uses parameters, the parameters are removed within the „page is“ filter in GSC. Note: Your time frame preferences according to the options are taken into account here.
• Open parent folder in GSC performance report ( | domain property): When you are using a folder structure, this deep link will open the parent folder and set „URL contains“ as a filter. So you can see all ranking data for URLs sharing the same parent folder. Note: Your time frame preferences according to the options are taken into account here.
• Open domain in index coverage report ( | domain property): Opens the index coverage report for the domain, either as URL or domain property.

General FAQ