Does the Google Search Console collect personal data?
By GEO Search Console Published
The Google Search Console does not give you personal data about the people who search for you: it reports totals, such as how many impressions a query got, and never who searched.
It goes further for rare searches, and the only personal data it keeps is about its own users. This page is part of our Google Search Console FAQ.
Search Console reports totals, not people
Google Search Console reports every number as a total across searchers: clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position, split by query, page, country, device and date.
None of those splits identifies a person. You can see that 40 people in Canada clicked a page from a phone, but never who they were.
That is also why no tool built on Search Console data can tell you who searched for something. Our page on whether you can tell who googled your name explains what you can see instead.
Search Console anonymizes rare queries
Google Search Console hides rare searches to protect privacy.
Google's deep dive on performance data says queries that aren't searched by more than a few dozen users over two to three months are anonymized: they count in the chart totals but never appear as rows in the table or the API.
So a search that could point to one person, such as a full name and a street, never shows up as a query.
The personal data Search Console does keep
The personal data Google Search Console keeps is account data: the Google accounts that own or use each property, and their permission levels.
Google's privacy policy covers that, as it does for any Google account. Owners can see the addresses of everyone with access in Users and permissions.
References
- A deep dive into Search Console performance data filtering and limits, Google Search Central Blog, 2022. developers.google.com/
search/ blog/ 2022/ 10/ performance-data-deep-dive - Managing owners, users, and permissions, Search Console Help.
- What are impressions, position, and clicks?, Search Console Help.