What you are choosing between
Three tools people weigh against this one, and all three are Google's own: Search Console itself, the BigQuery bulk export and Looker Studio.
Start from what you need
Six reasons people arrive here, and which of the four tools answers each.
- History older than 16 months
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- Search Console No
- BigQuery bulk export Yes
- Looker Studio No
- Clode Yes
Clode keeps a rolling 24 months on a paid site (14 days on a free one), starting with the 16 you already have. The BigQuery export keeps everything from the day you switch it on, and nothing from before it.
- Every query, not 1,000 rows
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- Search Console No
- BigQuery bulk export Yes
- Looker Studio Partly
- Clode Yes
Clode or the BigQuery export. Clode keeps every query Google names, up to its 5,000 a day, from 16 months back; the export keeps the raw rows from the day it starts. Looker Studio keeps none of them.
- Group pages by folder or rule
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- Search Console No
- BigQuery bulk export Partly
- Looker Studio Partly
- Clode Yes
Clode: a grouping is saved once, then read by the pivot tables and keyword screens. In Looker Studio it is a calculated field in each report; in BigQuery, SQL you write.
- Be told when something drops
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- Search Console No
- BigQuery bulk export Partly
- Looker Studio Partly
- Clode Yes
Clode runs four week-over-week checks after every sync and says in the app, in a sentence, what dropped. Looker Studio alerts need its paid Pro tier.
- Put search next to Analytics or Ads
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- Search Console No
- BigQuery bulk export Yes
- Looker Studio Yes
- Clode No
Looker Studio: blending sources is what it is for. A team with a warehouse can join the BigQuery export to anything. Clode's performance data comes from Search Console alone.
- Raw rows and my own SQL
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- Search Console No
- BigQuery bulk export Yes
- Looker Studio No
- Clode No
The BigQuery export: raw tables in your own Google Cloud project, from the day you switch it on. Clode gives you finished reports and CSV downloads.
All comparisons
vs Google Search Console
Search Console is where our data comes from. What we add on top: grouping, the full query list, ranked movers, alerts and 24 months of daily history.
Learn morevs the BigQuery bulk export
Google's free BigQuery export keeps data past 16 months, but it records only forward from setup day and never backfills. Side by side on setup and cost.
Learn morevs Looker Studio
Looker Studio is free and Google's own, but it keeps no archive: a Search Console dashboard stops where Google stops. Side by side on history and upkeep.
Learn moreWhere they're better
Every page here carries a "Where they're better" section, and none of them ends with "so obviously choose us". If one of these tools is the right answer for you, the page should be enough to tell you so.
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