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The plugin reads your site’s Search Console data through Surfer once a week and shows it under Performance Report in wp-admin. Before you start, you need:
  • Search Console connected in Surfer, in the organization the site is connected to, with a property for the site’s domain. See Google Search Console.
  • The site connected to Surfer.
  • A plan that includes the WordPress integration. See Availability.

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Turn the report on

The connection happens in Surfer. The plugin’s settings page only shows whether Surfer sees a property for the site.
1

Open the plugin's settings page

In the wp-admin sidebar, select Surfer.
2

Find the Search Console row

Find Google Search Console integration. It reads Not connected with Surfer until Surfer sees a property for the site’s domain.
3

Start the connection

If the row reads Not connected with Surfer, select Add GSC account to Surfer. Surfer’s Search Console settings open in a new tab.
4

Connect the Google account in Surfer

Connect the Google account in that tab, following Google Search Console.
5

Reload the plugin's settings page

Reload the plugin’s settings page. The row reads Connected, with Edit GSC integration inside Surfer beside it. The row asks Surfer again every time you open the page.
While the site is connected to Surfer but not to Search Console, wp-admin also shows the notice Data-driven SEO optimization with Surfer and Google Search Console. It offers the same connection. Make it from the plugin’s settings page as above. No, thanks dismisses the notice.

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When the data arrives

The plugin schedules a collection every Monday.
  • Each collection covers the previous Monday to Sunday.
  • Your first report follows the first Monday collection after you connect.
  • WordPress’s scheduler runs the collection when the site receives a page visit.
  • A quiet site can collect data later that day or later in the week.
  • Until the first collection, the report shows a date range above an empty table.
For each published post that Search Console reports for the site, the plugin stores:
  • Clicks, with the change against the previous week.
  • Impressions, with the change against the previous week.
  • Average position, with the change against the previous week.
The data has these boundaries:
  • Global figures only, with no split by country, device, or query.
  • No click-through rate.
  • Up to 1,000 URLs per collection.
  • Published content of any public post type. A URL that does not resolve to one is skipped.
The plugin requests totals for each page from Google. These can differ slightly from totals for the whole property in Search Console.

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Read the report

The report shows one week at a time. Open Surfer → Performance Report in wp-admin. The page is titled Performance Reports. The date line Date: names the week the numbers cover, written as day-month-year. Under Domain, four tiles sum up the site. Each carries its change against the previous week: Under Posts, the table lists each post with Position, Clicks, and Impressions. It shows 20 posts per page and sorts by any of the three. Each number carries a change marker:
  • An arrow up or down for a change, a dash for none.
  • Red when the post did worse, meaning a higher position number or fewer clicks or impressions.
  • No marker on a post with data from one week only.
Hover a number to see last week’s value and the dates of both weeks. A Content Editor is the document Surfer builds around your target keywords, holding the guidelines and the Content Score. The last column holds one button per post, depending on whether the post has a Content Editor attached:
  • Optimize with Surfer on a post with no Content Editor attached opens the same dialog as in the editor, described in Write in WordPress.
  • Edit in Surfer on a linked post opens its Content Editor in Surfer.
Above the table, All posts, Drop in Position, and Increased in Position filter the report.
  • Each filter shows a count.
  • A drop means the post’s average position number increased from the previous week, such as from 8 to 12.
  • An empty filter shows No posts found for this criteria....

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Get the weekly email

Once Search Console is connected, the plugin can email a weekly summary to the site’s administration email address. Before that, the E-mail notifications section of the plugin’s settings page has no toggle and reads You need to make GSC connection to be able to activate email notifications.
1

Open the plugin's settings page

In the wp-admin sidebar, select Surfer.
2

Turn the report on

Under E-mail notifications, turn on Send me a weekly report on my site’s performance.
3

Save

Select Save changes.
The setting is also listed in the settings table on Set up the WordPress plugin. While the email is off, the report screen shows a Turn on a weekly report button that leads to this setting.
The E-mail notifications section of the plugin settings with the weekly report toggle turned on.
The email arrives at most once a week, after a collection that returned data. Its subject is Surfer Performance Report for domain: example.com, with your own domain in place of the example. It opens with the week’s totals for impressions and clicks and how many posts dropped or rose, then lists posts under two headings:
  • Dropped in ranking: posts that ranked in the top 10 and lost positions, and pages that left Google’s results.
  • Increased in ranking: posts attached to a Content Editor that gained positions, and pages that entered Google’s results.
View this week’s report in the email opens the report screen.

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Verify it is working

The menu item appears first. The first Monday fills the report.
  1. In the wp-admin sidebar, Performance Report appears under Surfer on the page load after the row reads Connected.
  2. After the first Monday, open Surfer → Performance Report. The tiles and the table show the previous week’s numbers.

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Troubleshooting

The fixes for these symptoms live on the troubleshooting page.