Instagram, TikTok, X & YouTube properties

Track how social and video posts are discovered through Google Search and Discover.

GSC UI required Beginner

Search Console platform properties show how content from a supported social or video account performs on Google, not how it performs inside the social platform.

The supported platforms are:

Instagram.
TikTok.
X.
YouTube.

Each account or channel is added as its own Search Console property. Its reports can show Google Search performance and, when eligible, performance from Discover and Google News. They do not replace Instagram Insights, TikTok Analytics, X Analytics, or YouTube Analytics.

Platform properties began rolling out gradually in July 2026. This guide reflects Google's documentation on July 18, 2026.

What a platform property is

A platform property represents a profile, account, or channel on one supported third-party platform. For example, an Instagram profile and a YouTube channel are two separate properties, even when the same organization owns both.

It is different from a website property:

Property type	Asset represented	Typical verification	Primary scope
Domain property	A domain and all its protocols, subdomains, and paths	DNS	Website performance and technical health
URL-prefix property	URLs beginning with one exact prefix	Several website methods	A defined website URL scope
Platform property	One supported social account or video channel	Existing website connection or direct platform login	The account's content performance across supported Google surfaces

Adding a property is a reporting and access action. Google states that adding one does not change how the website or platform property appears in Search.

Current availability

Google is making platform properties available gradually. If the Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube choices do not appear under Add property, the feature has probably not reached that Search Console account yet.

Google does not document:

A manual application or waitlist.
A markup method that activates the property type.
A guaranteed rollout date for a particular account or country.
A way to create an unsupported platform property by entering its URL as a website property.

Do not treat absence from the property picker as a verification failure. First confirm that the platform option itself is available.

Search Console has used two related but distinct approaches to social reporting.

Platform properties

The current platform property is a standalone property type. A creator can add an eligible account or channel and select it from the normal property selector. Google's launch announcement says this is intended for creators with or without their own website.

An earlier Insights experiment associated social channels with an existing website. Search Console identified eligible channels automatically, and the site owner could accept or remove those channel insights. The documentation said users could not choose or manually add a specific channel.

Do not use those experimental constraints to describe the new property type. The new setup flow allows a supported account or channel to be added and verified as a property in its own right.

Set up a platform property

Open the Search Console property selector or welcome screen.
Choose Add property.
Find the supported platform and choose Add.
Follow the authorization and ownership-verification prompts.
Select Go to property after verification succeeds.

Google documents two broad verification routes: an automated connection through an existing website property or direct platform login. The exact prompts can vary by platform and account state.

If an organization has several profiles on one platform, add each profile separately. Repeat the process for every Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube account that needs independent reporting.

Use the correct owner identity

The Google account completing setup must be able to authorize ownership of the selected platform account or channel. Before starting:

Confirm that the person is logged into the intended platform account.
Avoid authorizing a personal profile when a brand profile is required.
Record which team controls the external login.
Plan how access will be maintained when staff or agencies change.

The property is not a roll-up for every account owned by the same company. Its scope is the account or channel selected during setup.

Keep verification active

Google periodically checks platform-property ownership. If an external login or connection expires, access to the property pauses until it is verified again.

Reverification restores access to the same report. Google says the user does not need to wait for the data to accumulate again after reconnecting.

A practical ownership audit should record:

The platform account represented by each property.
The Search Console owners and users who need access.
The external identity used for authorization.
The team responsible for reconnecting an expired login.
The date on which access was last tested.

An access pause is not evidence that Google stopped discovering the account's posts. It describes the reporting connection.

What the property measures

The property reports interactions with the account's content on supported Google surfaces.

The core questions are:

How often did the content appear on Google?
How often did users click it from Google?
Which posts or content URLs generated the activity?
Which Search queries led to that content?
Which countries contributed clicks?
Is activity rising or falling over the selected period?

The property can provide Performance, Insights, and Achievements reporting.

What the property does not measure

Platform properties do not report native activity inside Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube.

They do not answer:

How many times a post was shown in the platform's own feed.
How many native-platform views, likes, shares, saves, comments, or followers it received.
Average watch time, audience retention, or completion rate inside the platform.
Reach from the platform's recommendation algorithm.
Paid campaign delivery inside the platform.
The demographics or interests exposed only by the platform's analytics product.
Conversions after a user continues through the platform unless another analytics system records them.

For example, a TikTok video can have millions of views inside TikTok and few Google impressions. Conversely, an evergreen video or profile page can earn meaningful Google activity without being a current native-platform trend.

Always label the source as Google Search Console platform-property data, not “Instagram reach” or “YouTube views.”

How impressions and clicks work

The metrics follow the Google surface where the content appeared, not the platform's native metric definitions.

Google gives two useful examples:

An Instagram Story shown in Google Search counts as a Search Console impression. A click on that result counts as a click.
A video shown in Search results or Discover counts as an impression. A click counts even when the video opens in a viewer hosted on Google rather than immediately opening the platform's site or app.

That second rule is important. A Search Console click is an interaction with the Google result; it does not always mean a conventional landing-page session that an external analytics tag can measure.

Do not compare Search Console clicks one-for-one with platform referral sessions without first accounting for:

Google-hosted viewers.
App openings and deep links.
Consent and analytics blocking.
Different time zones and processing delays.
The platform's own session rules.

Performance report

The Performance report provides the main detailed analysis. Google documents:

Total clicks.
Total impressions.
Average CTR.
Average position where that metric applies.
Filters and dimensions for identifying posts and Search queries.

The selected property defines the account or channel being measured. Page or content rows represent eligible URLs belonging to that platform presence, such as a profile, post, Story, or video URL that appeared on Google.

Search, Discover, and Google News

Google's platform-property documentation says content performance can be reported for Google Search and, when the content appears there, Discover and Google News.

Discover and Google News reports are conditional: they appear only when the property has reportable activity from those surfaces. Their absence does not mean setup failed.

Keep the surfaces separate during analysis:

Surface	Typical intent	Query data	Position
Google Search	A user performs a search	Available subject to privacy limits	Defined under Search result rules
Discover	Google recommends content without a typed query	Not available	Not reported
Google News	A user browses or follows news in Google News	Not available	Not reported

Do not attribute a Discover spike to a Search query. Do not average position across surfaces where position is undefined.

Insights report

Insights provides a simpler view of recent performance, including trends, top content, and discovery through Google Search.

For platform properties, the summary and detailed cards have different scopes:

The top summary card shows clicks across Google, including Web, Image, Video, and News search.
The detailed lists below it focus on Web Search traffic.

Therefore, the total of the detailed content or query cards can be lower than the headline total. That difference is expected and should not be “corrected” by forcing the rows to add up.

The default date range for both Insights and Performance is 28 days. Trending items compare click changes with the preceding period and are ordered by absolute click gain or loss, not percentage change.

Achievements

Achievements marks click-based milestones, such as reaching a new threshold of total Search clicks in the last 28 days.

Use milestones as communication prompts, not as causal analysis. An achievement does not reveal why clicks increased or whether that traffic met a business objective. Open Performance or Insights to identify the contributing content and queries.

Data availability for a new property

It takes a few days after setup for metrics to appear. A new property can therefore show:

Empty charts while data is collected and processed.
Partial charts containing only days after collection began.
No Discover or Google News report because the property lacks qualifying traffic there.
Sparse query rows because privacy filtering hides low-volume queries.

Google documents a 28-day default view, but a newly created property does not instantly backfill a complete 28-day baseline. Compare periods only after both periods contain comparable coverage.

Do not diagnose a platform or Search visibility problem from the first empty day after verification.

A reliable analysis workflow

1. Confirm identity and scope

Write down the exact platform, handle, account, or channel represented by the property. Check that the profile shown in Search Console is the intended asset.

2. Check the collection window

Record the setup date and the first date with data. Exclude incomplete baselines from period comparisons.

3. Start with the surface

Separate Web Search, Image, Video, News, Discover, and Google News where the interface provides those views. Do not mix their metric definitions.

4. Find the contributing content

Review the pages or posts with the most clicks and impressions. Then inspect items with the largest absolute change against the preceding period.

5. Connect Search queries to content

For Search data, inspect the query-to-content relationship:

Brand or handle searches.
Creator-name searches.
Topic and how-to searches.
Product, event, or news searches.
Queries where a specific post is gaining impressions but has weak CTR.

Remember that privacy filtering prevents the query table from being a complete keyword inventory.

6. Segment before interpreting

Check country, device, and available search appearance or content filters before assigning a cause. A change concentrated in one country or result type should not be described as an account-wide audience shift without supporting data.

7. Validate outcomes elsewhere

Use the platform's native analytics for views, watch time, engagement, and follower growth. Use web or app analytics for downstream visits and conversions. Preserve the source and definition of every metric.

Export and automation boundaries

Google's launch announcement explicitly supports exporting Performance data for analysis in another tool. Use the interface's export options when a reproducible snapshot is required.

The current public documentation does not define a platform-property-specific API identifier, request format, or BigQuery schema. Do not assume that every interface card or property workflow is available through the Search Console API merely because standard website Performance data is.

For a dependable process:

Verify the platform property and report in the interface.
Export the required view with its filters and date range.
Store the platform, property, surface, time zone, and export date with the data.
Recheck official API documentation before building automation around the new property type.

Common mistakes

Calling Google impressions native reach

Search Console measures appearances on Google. It does not measure feed distribution inside the platform.

Calling every click a website visit

A video click can open a Google-hosted viewer. App and deep-link behavior can also prevent a conventional web session.

Combining every profile into one property

Each account or channel must be created and tracked independently.

Confusing the old experiment with the new property type

Experimental website-linked channel insights depended on Google's automatic associations. A platform property is added and verified as a standalone asset.

Expecting Discover and Google News immediately

Those reports appear only when eligible content receives reportable traffic from the surface.

Comparing an incomplete new period with a full period

New properties can contain only the days collected since setup.

Treating a lost connection as lost visibility

Expired verification pauses access to reporting. It does not by itself establish that the content disappeared from Google.

Using Search Console instead of platform analytics

Search Console explains Google discovery. Native analytics explains activity inside the platform. Both are needed for a complete channel view.

What Search Console can and cannot conclude

It can show:

How supported platform content performs on Google.
Clicks, impressions, CTR, and applicable position metrics.
Posts or URLs contributing performance.
Search queries subject to Search Console privacy limits.
Conditional Discover and Google News activity.
Recent trends and click milestones.

It cannot show:

Complete native-platform reach or engagement.
Feed impressions, follower growth, or watch retention inside the platform.
Every low-volume Search query.
Why Google ranked or recommended a particular post.
Whether a click converted without downstream measurement.
A combined causal explanation across Google and the platform's own algorithm.

Review checklist

The platform option is available in the account's Add property flow.
Every required account or channel has its own property.
The external login and Search Console owner are documented.
Periodic verification is monitored.
The setup date and first complete reporting date are recorded.
Google activity is not labeled as native-platform reach.
Search, Discover, and Google News remain separate.
Query and position claims are limited to surfaces that report them.
Insights headline scope is distinguished from its Web-focused detail cards.
Google-viewer clicks are not assumed to be website sessions.
Performance exports preserve filters, surface, property, and date range.
Native analytics validates views, engagement, watch time, and followers.