Clode vs Google's BigQuery bulk export
Google's own answer to the 16-month limit is free and it works. It also has one property that no amount of budget fixes later, and it is worth understanding before you pick either of us.
- Search Console still has this
- Already deleted by Google
- Recorded by the export
- Copied the day you connect
- Added by the daily sync
- Room the archive fills: 24 months
- The BigQuery export holds
- 0 months
- Your archive holds
- 16 months
Switch both on today: the export starts empty, and the archive starts with the 16 months Google still holds.
Drawn for a property Google has held for at least 16 months. A younger property starts with less. A paid project keeps these 24 months; a free project keeps the most recent 14 days.
The BigQuery export never fills in the past
The BigQuery export starts recording the day you switch it on and never fills in the past. Google's own documentation points you at the Search Console API for anything before setup. So the ~16 months sitting in your account right now are not saved by turning it on; they expire on schedule while the export accumulates. We seed from the API on connection, so your archive starts with that history already in it, and we then hold a rolling 24 months, whereas the export, once running, keeps everything from setup day onward for as long as you keep the tables. The other difference is what you get: BigQuery gives you tables, and the SQL and the dashboards are yours to write.
Side by side
| BigQuery bulk export | Clode | |
|---|---|---|
| The 16 months you have right now | Not at all: Lost. The export only records forward and never backfills | Does it better: Copied from the API the moment you connect |
| Setup | Partly: A Google Cloud project with billing enabled, then a linked export | Does it better: Sign in with Google and pick the property |
| Getting an answer out | Partly: Write SQL, then build the dashboard | Does it better: Open the page |
| Grouping, coverage, alerts, pivots | Partly: Build them yourself | Does it better: Already there |
| Query-level detail | Does it as well: Complete, in raw tables | Does it as well: Complete, in reports, and exportable |
| Ongoing cost | Does it better: Metered: storage per GiB a month, queries per TiB scanned; 10 GiB and 1 TiB free monthly | Partly: Free for one site, then a fixed monthly price with a ceiling |
| Who it suits | A team with a data engineer and a warehouse | Someone who wants the answer, not the pipeline |
| Vendor risk | Does it better: None. It is your own Google Cloud project | Partly: Ours to earn; everything is exportable at any time |
| How long it keeps | Does it better: From setup day on, for as long as you keep the tables | Partly: A rolling 24 months on a paid site, 14 days on a free one, starting with the 16 copied on connection |
| Joining sales, CRM or ad spend | Does it better: Any table in your warehouse, joined in SQL | Partly: Search Console data, with CSV downloads to join elsewhere |
← Side by side →
Where they're better
If you have someone who writes SQL, BigQuery is excellent. It gives you the raw rows with no interpretation between you and the data, no vendor holding your archive, and you can join it against anything else in your warehouse: sales, CRM, ad spend. For a technical team building a proper reporting stack, it is the right foundation and we are not a substitute for it. Its cost is metered: storage by the GiB per month and queries by the TiB scanned, with the first 10 GiB stored and the first 1 TiB queried free every month (Google's free-tier page, checked 23 September 2026). What a site spends past that depends on how many rows it earns and how often you query them. Switch it on today either way: it is the only thing that preserves data from today forward if you ever leave us.
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 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 morePricing
How many sites, how far back your history goes, and how many reports you save. Everything else is the same on both plans, and the price depends only on how many sites you connect.
See pricingConnect your site and see the first answer today
Sign in with Google, pick a property, and your dashboard fills in while you watch, with the screen counting the days as they land.