GSC Guide

5 Google Search Console Limitations (And How to Work Around Them)

Google Search Console is free, powerful, and essential for anyone who cares about SEO. It's also stuck in 2015 in some annoying ways.

Here are the limitations that drive SEOs crazy — and some workarounds that actually help.

1

No Multi-Property View

The problem:

If you manage more than one site, you're clicking through a dropdown menu. Every. Single. Time. There's no portfolio dashboard, no way to see all your sites at once, no aggregate view.

Managing 20 client sites? That's 20 clicks just to check if anyone had a traffic drop.

Why it matters:

You can't spot patterns across properties. You can't quickly see which sites need attention. You waste time on navigation instead of analysis.

Workarounds:

  • •Export data from each property and combine in spreadsheets (tedious)
  • •Build a custom solution using the GSC API (requires development time)
  • •Use a third-party aggregator like SearchBird that shows all properties in one view
2

Limited Date Comparison

The problem:

You can compare two date ranges, but only for one property at a time. Want to see which of your 10 sites improved last month? That's 10 separate comparisons, 10 screenshots, 10 mental notes.

Why it matters:

Comparative analysis across a portfolio is basically impossible in the native interface.

Workarounds:

  • •Export to Looker Studio and build comparison dashboards (complex setup)
  • •Manual spreadsheet tracking (time-consuming)
  • •Tools that do cross-property comparison automatically
3

Data Only Goes Back 16 Months

The problem:

Need to check what happened 2 years ago? What your traffic looked like before a major algorithm update? Too bad. GSC deletes data older than 16 months.

Why it matters:

Long-term trend analysis is impossible. You lose historical context that could inform strategy.

Workarounds:

  • •Set up automated exports to BigQuery (Google's recommended solution, but requires setup)
  • •Use Looker Studio to archive data before it disappears
  • •Third-party tools that store historical data
4

No Alerting or Notifications

The problem:

A site drops 50% in clicks. GSC won't tell you. You'll find out when you happen to log in — or when your client yells at you.

There's no way to set up alerts for traffic drops, ranking changes, or indexing issues.

Why it matters:

By the time you notice a problem, it's been a problem for days or weeks. Early detection matters for SEO issues.

Workarounds:

  • •Build custom alerts via the API and a monitoring service
  • •Use rank tracking tools that offer alerting
  • •Check GSC more frequently (not really a solution, but it's what most people do)
5

No Mobile App

The problem:

There's no official GSC mobile app. You can use the mobile web version, but it's clunky and hard to navigate on a phone.

Why it matters:

Quick checks on the go require pulling out your laptop or suffering through a mobile browser experience designed for desktop.

Workarounds:

  • •Use the mobile web version and deal with it
  • •Third-party apps like SearchBird's iOS app that's designed for mobile

The Bottom Line

GSC is indispensable. Nothing else gives you this data for free, directly from Google. But if you manage multiple properties, you need something on top of it.

We built SearchBird specifically to fill these gaps — not to replace GSC, but to make it actually usable at scale. It connects to your existing GSC data and gives you the portfolio view, comparisons, and mobile access that Google hasn't built.

Try SearchBird Free

See all your GSC properties in one dashboard

Further Reading

Google's official GSC documentation
GSC API documentation

Related Guides

Managing Multiple GSC Properties

General guide for anyone with multiple sites in Google Search Console.

SearchBird for SEO Agencies

All client properties, one dashboard. Built for agencies managing portfolios.