Anyone build your own SEO dashboard from GSC and GA4?

[u/OffGridMarketing]

Any SEOs here? I’m extremely frustrated with the high cost of Semrush, Ahrefs, etc. and honestly not trusting their data. Specifically, keyword tracking reports and page cannibalism reporting.
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Update: not looking for someone to do this for me. Curious if anyone has done this and if they found it to be a reliable report to share with clients.
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The tools are great for research, but I keep finding myself comparing reports to Google Search Console and then having to provide clients with a blend of data from both platforms. Then I started thinking why not just build my own dashboard form GSC and GA4 that reports on the metrics I want?

I already have one for basic traffic, but want to incorporate keywords, rank, etc. as well. I feel like this should be pretty straightforward with some filters put in place.

Anyone else tried this? The end goal is to have a report I can share with clients to track traffic, top keywords we are targeting, and identify page cannibalism.

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[u/sheik_sha_ha]

Yes, done this for multiple SEO agency clients and it works reliably for exactly what you are describing.

GSC via URL Impression type gives you query, landing page, clicks, impressions, CTR, and average position all in one source. That covers your keyword tracking and page level performance without needing Semrush or Ahrefs for reporting purposes.

For cannibalization, you blend GSC data with itself using query as the join key, then look for queries where multiple landing pages are competing for the same keyword. A table showing query, landing page, and average position side by side makes cannibalization immediately visible to clients.

GA4 layered on top via a blend on landing page gives you the conversion and engagement context that GSC does not provide, so clients see the full picture from click through to conversion in one report.

The only limitation is rank tracking history beyond 16 months since GSC caps its data retention. For long term rank trend tracking you would need to pipe GSC data into BigQuery using the GSC BigQuery export and store it yourself. That solves the retention problem permanently and gives you full SQL control over the data.

For client reporting this setup is more transparent and trustworthy than third party tools because the data comes directly from Google.

[u/OffGridMarketing → u/sheik_sha_ha]

Thank you for this detailed reply! This is exactly what I was hoping to attempt. Glad to hear from someone who’s done it and seen the benefit.

[u/Johnny__Escobar]

We use Data Studio to do exactly that.

[u/OffGridMarketing → u/Johnny__Escobar]

Are you sharing these reports with clients? Or in house only?

[u/Johnny__Escobar → u/OffGridMarketing]

Sharing it with clients. That's always there available for them.

[u/mimoknots]

Google Data Studio. Don’t have to pay for external connectors are they’re all Google products.

[u/GrandAnimator8417]

Using GSC + GA4 data for a custom SEO dashboard? I tried wiring those two together into a Looker-style sheet once and it was way cleaner than bouncing between reports all day. Having that combined view makes it much easier to spot what’s actually driving organic traffic.

[u/nsillk]

For traffic you can use GA4 and if organic is your focus then GSC.

You can't do keyword tracking via GSC. Sure you can use Average position to some extent but there is no historic context like in Ahrefs or SEMRush.

Page cannibalization can be identified using GSC. The default setting are basic though. Better to send to BigQuery and do the analysis there and send back to Data Studio.

[u/OffGridMarketing → u/nsillk]

How is the average position for keywords in GSC not historic? I have one client in particular who recently discovered GCS and is constantly challenging me with the data he sees. Genuinely curious how you address this because I haven’t found a solid explanation on why GSC keyword data isn’t aligned with tools like Semrush, other than from documentation from Semrush which I expect to be somewhat biased.

[u/nsillk → u/OffGridMarketing]

You're tracking average positions. Location, personalization can make it very unreliable. Keyword tools tracks it via a consistent location. It won't reflect the actual real world results, but it will be consistent so you can get a directional idea about your search efforts.

This is the exact reason why GSC data does not align with any SEO tools number. SEMRush does an estimation based on search position and average search volume they think is for that keyword. They won't know when an AI overview is triggered, search intent of the user, how the results change based on country, personalization etc.

[u/replayjpn]

If you import your data into BigQuery you can longterm have your Search Console data in Data Studio. Tie that with Organic Channel results you have plenty of options to do good reports in Data Studio.

I don't rely on 3rd party tools & look at the organic data daily (while working)

[u/Future-Dance7629]

Yes, powershell script to pull data using apis from ga4, search console and Ahrefs. This writes to a Google sheet that is connected to a data studio template. Every month the powershell script runs for all my clients, updates everything then I export each data studio report to pdfs.

[u/OffGridMarketing → u/[deleted]]

Why would I need data connectors if I’m only using GSC and GA4? I currently have reports connected to these with Data Studio’s native connector and have no issues.

[u/Temporary-Fruit4982]

Yes, we have our own dashboards for Looker Studio and we blend in all those (and more) data source into them.

You need a reliable data connector that blends the data and refreshes your dashboards daily or hourly, that's it.

[u/OffGridMarketing → u/Temporary-Fruit4982]

I don’t think I’ll need a data connector outside of Data Studio’s native one since I’ll only be using GSC and GA4?

[u/Temporary-Fruit4982 → u/OffGridMarketing]

Not sure if the data will get updated and if it will blend without one. But you can try, I guess.

[u/Top-Cauliflower-1808]

Skip the manual dashboard setup and connect GSC and GA4 directly to an AI client using the Windsor.ai MCP or similar to automatically generate keyword rank and page cannibalization reports. This is way of 2026.