💡 This article refers to problems with how Google Search Console (GSC) data is displayed for GSC verified projects in Dashboard and Rank tracker. Learn more on how to verify a project with GSC

If you face errors when verifying your project with GSC, view this article instead.

First, make sure that your GSC property and Ahrefs project both matches exactly

Before we get into the common issues, we'd like to cover some useful examples of Ahrefs projects and Google Search Console (GSC) properties that match exactly.

This is because most of the common issues are due to mismatches between the Ahrefs project target and its corresponding property in GSC.

What Ahrefs project target matches a Domain property in GSC?

sc-domain:example.com is a domain property that is verified in GSC, using DNS, for the example.com domain.

In Ahrefs, the equivalent project has a setup with http | https example.com subdomains target:

What Ahrefs project target matches a URL prefix property in GSC?

https://example.com/ is a prefix property that covers only the HTTPS protocol, and only URLs for which https://example.com/ is a prefix.

This corresponds to an Ahrefs project with a setup of https example.com domain or https example.com prefix target.

If I have an Ahrefs project with target https://www.example.com/en, what is the matching GSC property?

If you create an Ahrefs project that has a setup with http | https example.com/en subdomains:

You will find that you cannot create the matching Domain property in GSC.

This is because you can only enter in a Domain or subdomain URL as a domain property.

Option 1: You'd need to remove "/en" from the string, and change the Ahrefs project scope to http | https www.example.com subdomains so that they match:

In Ahrefs:

In GSC:

Option 2: Or if you absolutely need the "/en" in the scope, then verify the GSC property as a URL prefix instead:

Then change the Ahrefs project scope to https example.com/en path so that they match:

So it's very important that for the GSC data in Ahrefs to show correctly, that both Ahrefs project and GSC property must have a precise match. Below are some of the ways they can mismatch.

Common issues with GSC data

GSC is verified, but no data is showing in Ahrefs

First check: Does the GSC property itself have any data?

If not, please make sure you have the correct property set up where it covers pages that actually rank in Google.

For example, you may accidentally have verified http://example.com as a URL-prefix property (instead of using HTTPS), but your website redirects to its https://example.com version anyway. (Google does not index and rank redirecting pages).

Or your verified website is very new, and Google has yet to index and rank it. In which case you need to give time before data starts showing up in both GSC and Ahrefs.

Data imported from GSC is incomplete

You may see this message at the bottom of your project.

This means that the scope of the property verified in GSC is more restricted than the scope of the Ahrefs project.

An example of this is: having an Ahrefs project for a site where it has this target:
http | https example.com subdomains.

but in Google Search Console, the matching website is only verified as a URL prefix property: https://example.com/ and not the Domain property sc-domain:example.com.

Remember that only a verified Domain property in GSC can cover all URLs across all subdomains and HTTP | HTTPS protocols.

As a result, Ahrefs can only get metrics for the HTTPS protoccol https://example.com/ and only for that specific domain https://example.com/, and not the HTTP protoccol http://example.com/ or any other subdomains (such as https://blog.example.com/).

So we show this message that data is incomplete to highlight that we could only import a small subset of the data that was requested for the project's target in Ahrefs.

GSC shows data in Dashboard, but not in Rank Tracker

This means that the scope of the property verified in GSC is less restricted than the scope of the Ahrefs project.

For example the GSC property is sc-domain:example.com but the Ahrefs property is http | https www.example.com subdomains

So Ahrefs is able to partially import data from the GSC property to show only the overall performance numbers for the subdomain www.example.com. But it won't be able to show any results in the Rank Tracker > GSC > Pages and Keywords reports.

The solution in this case would be to either remove the www. in the scope of the Ahrefs project, or verify a new GSC property: sc-domain:www.example.com

If you would like help trying to narrow down the cause of the mismatch, please contact Ahrefs support via live chat or email [email protected].

Data shown in Ahrefs is very behind GSC

A few weeks of delay behind your GSC is normal, but if its more than a few months, please contact support over live chat or email us at [email protected] and we can help to investigate.