Answer Radar
Connecting Google Search Console
Connecting Search Console gives Answer Radar the queries real buyers used to reach your site, which is first-party demand rather than a guess. The connection is not an OAuth redirect. You add Linkeddit's own service-account address as a user on your property inside Google, and Answer Radar verifies it can read it. This article walks the steps and explains why it works this way.
Quick Answer
On a project's Overview, the Search Console panel shows the address to add. In Google Search Console, open your property's Settings, Users and permissions, and add that address as a user. Back in Linkeddit press Check for properties and choose the property for this project. Access is read-only, and you can stop it at any time.
- Linkeddit never holds a customer credential; the grant lives in your Google account.
- The scope requested is read-only Search Console.
- gsc_queries_get then returns queries, impressions, clicks and average position, ranked by impressions.
Why a service account and not a Google login
Search Console scopes are sensitive in Google's terms, so using them through a Google login for external customers would require Google's OAuth app verification and would leave Linkeddit holding and encrypting a refresh token for every customer. A service account needs none of that. You add our address as a user on your own property, which is what most SEO and AEO tools already ask for, and we never take custody of a customer credential at all.
The address is customer-facing and reads as unmistakably us; it begins linkeddit-search-console. The scope requested is the read-only Search Console scope: a credential that cannot write cannot be abused into writing, and a customer inspecting the grant sees read only.
The steps
Open the project's Overview and find the Search Console panel. It shows the address to add and whether the connection is configured. Copy the address. In Google Search Console, select the property for the domain this project tracks, open Settings, then Users and permissions, and add the address as a user. Restricted permission is enough for reading.
Return to Linkeddit and press Check for properties. The panel lists every property the address can now read. Choose the one for this project. The panel then shows the connected property, and you can disconnect it later from the same panel, which stops reading immediately.
- Copy the address from the Overview panel.
- Add it as a user on your property in Google Search Console.
- Press Check for properties, then pick the property.
What the connection unlocks
gsc_queries_get returns the search queries real buyers used to reach the project's site from your own Search Console data, ranked by impressions, with clicks and average position, over the number of days you ask for. Use it to decide which buying questions are worth measuring, to sanity-check a proposed prompt set against what people actually type, and to find high-impression questions where the site ranks poorly. If the project is not connected, the response says so plainly.
A scheduled sync keeps the queries current. Search Console data is the one first-party demand signal in the product, and the proposals article explains how to use it when choosing prompts.
FAQ
Check for properties shows nothing. What is wrong?
Usually the address has not been added yet, was added to a different property, or Google has not propagated the permission. Confirm the address in Users and permissions on the right property and check again. The panel says 'Could not reach Search Console' when the server side is not configured; contact us if you see that.
Can Linkeddit change anything in my Search Console?
No. The scope is read-only. We do not submit sitemaps or alter settings, and the credential cannot.
How do I disconnect?
Use the disconnect control in the project's Search Console panel, which stops reading, and remove the address from your property's users in Google to revoke the grant itself.
Related help pages
Answer Radar
How Answer Radar Proposes Buying Questions
What Generate questions does, what it draws on, why proposals land in a draft set you approve, and how to ground a set in real Search Console queries.
Answer Radar
Choosing and Approving Buying Questions
How the Questions page works: generate, approve, remove, add your own, classify by type and funnel stage, tag with topics. Only approved questions are audited.
Answer Radar
The Query Fan-Out View
What query fan-out is, how Answer Radar records the searches each engine issued while answering your prompts, how it is grouped, and the two limits it reports.
Answer Radar
Answer Radar From Claude, Cursor and Other MCP Clients
Every Answer Radar capability is an MCP tool. How to connect the Linkeddit connector, which tools exist, how scopes and the Compete plan apply, and a first.