How do I connect Google Search Console for a client?
Connect your Google account once in codus settings, and the SEO team can read Search Console for any client whose Search Console the connected account has access to. Open the gear, go to Integrations, find the Google card, and click Connect with Google. The full steps live in How do I connect Google (Search Console, GA4, Tag Manager, Google Ads)?. This page explains what it unlocks for an SEO audit and how access works per client.
Before you start
- Have the Google account that can see the client's Search Console. That is the account you sign in with.
- You connect Google once, not once per client. One connection covers every client the account can reach.
What connecting it unlocks
Search Console is the client's own first-party search data, straight from Google. With it connected, the team can use the numbers no outside source can truly know:
- The client's real clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position.
- The actual search queries the site shows for.
That real data is what lets the audit find things it otherwise cannot, in particular:
- Click gaps, where the client ranks well but earns fewer clicks than the position should, so you can win traffic without moving up.
- Overlapping pages (cannibalisation), where two of the client's own pages compete for the same query.
- Decay, where a page is quietly losing the clicks it used to get.
Without it, the team still audits the site against the live search results and the ranking competitors, but these particular findings are limited, and anything it cannot back with a connected source is marked provisional in the report.
How access works per client
This is the part that catches people out. You connect one Google account, and the team can only see a client's Search Console if that connected account has access to that client's property in Search Console.
- If you already manage the client's Search Console under the account you connected, you are done.
- If the client owns their own Search Console, ask them to add your connected Google account as a user on their property (Search Console, then Settings, then Users and permissions). Read access is enough.
- If different clients live under different Google logins, connect the login that has the most access, and get the others to share their property with it. You do not connect a second Google account per client.
How do I know it worked?
- In codus settings, the Google card shows a green Connected label with your email.
- On your next run, the audit includes click-gap and cannibalisation findings for the client, rather than marking them provisional.
Common problems
"The audit says it could not see the client's Search Console." The connected Google account does not have access to that client's property. Get the client to add your account as a user in their Search Console, then run again.
"I connected Google but a different client has no search data." Access is per property. The account you connected can see some clients and not others. Share each client's property with the connected account.
"Do I need this to run an audit at all?" No. It is not required to start a run. It deepens the audit and removes provisional caveats where the client's own data would otherwise fill the gap.