Common Issues

Connection issues

Cannot connect Google account — OAuth popup fails or closes

Problem: Clicking "Connect" opens the Google sign-in screen but it fails to complete, or closes without connecting.

Fix:

1. Disable browser popup blockers and ad blockers for coupler.io and accounts.google.com.

2. Clear browser cookies and try in an incognito window.

3. Make sure you're signing into the Google account that has access to the Search Console properties you want to export.

4. If your Google account uses 2-factor authentication, complete the verification prompt before the popup times out.

No sites appear in the Sites dropdown

Problem: After connecting your Google account, the Sites selector shows no options.

Fix:

1. Verify that the connected Google account has access to at least one verified property in Google Search Console.

2. Check whether the property is a Domain property (e.g., sc-domain:example.com) or a URL-prefix property (e.g., https://example.com/). Both types should appear.

3. If the property was recently added or verified, allow a few minutes for the GSC API to reflect the change.

4. Try disconnecting and reconnecting the Google account from coupler.io/app/connections.

Error after reconnecting — data flow fails immediately after re-auth

Problem: You reconnected your Google account but the data flow still fails with an authentication error.

Fix:

1. Go to coupler.io/app/connections, remove the existing Google Search Console connection, and reconnect from scratch.

2. When reconnecting, make sure you grant all requested permissions — if you skip a permission scope, the data flow will fail.

3. Check myaccount.google.com/permissions to confirm Coupler.io has access.

Missing data

No data returned for the selected date range

Problem: The data flow completes but returns zero rows for the chosen date range.

Fix:

1. Google Search Console data has a 2–3 day processing delay. If your End date is today, the most recent days will have no data. Try setting the End date to 3 days ago.

2. If using Data state: Final, the cutoff is even further back — typically 3–5 days. Switch to All if you need the freshest available data (understanding it may still change).

3. GSC retains data for approximately 16 months. If your Start date is older than 16 months, no data will be returned for those dates.

4. Verify the selected site actually received impressions during the date range. A new or low-traffic site may have no data.

Query dimension shows "(other)" instead of actual search terms

Problem: Some rows in the export show (other) in the query column instead of the actual search term.

Fix: This is a Google Search Console API limitation, not a Coupler.io issue. When there are too many unique queries (high cardinality), Google groups low-volume queries under (other) to protect user privacy and manage data volume. There is no workaround — the underlying data is anonymized by Google.

To reduce the (other) bucket:

1. Narrow the date range to a shorter period (fewer unique queries per day).

2. Add a Page dimension filter to focus on specific pages.

3. Add a Country filter to limit the geographic scope.

Discover or Google News reports return no data

Problem: Selecting the Discover performance or Google News performance report type returns zero rows.

Fix:

1. Not all sites have Discover or Google News data. Your site must appear in Google Discover or Google News to generate data for these reports.

2. Check the Google Search Console UI directly — if Discover or Google News sections don't appear in the sidebar, your site doesn't have data for these surfaces.

3. These reports have a shorter data retention period than Search results — data may be available for a more limited window.

URLs index performance returns errors for some URLs

Problem: Some URLs in the inspection report show errors in the coupler_io_import_error column instead of inspection results.

Fix:

1. Verify the URLs are correct and belong to the verified site property. The URL must match the property's scheme and domain exactly.

2. The URL Inspection API has a per-property quota. If you inspect too many URLs in a short period, some may fail with quota errors. Reduce the number of URLs per data flow and retry.

3. If a URL returns a 403 error, the connected Google account may not have permission to inspect URLs for that property.

Data discrepancies

Click and impression counts don't match the GSC UI

Problem: The numbers exported by Coupler.io differ from what the Google Search Console web interface shows.

Fix:

1. Check the Data state setting. The GSC UI defaults to "Final" data. If your Coupler.io export uses "All", you'll see fresher but potentially different numbers.

2. Check the Search results type setting. The GSC UI defaults to "Web". If you selected "News", "Image", or "Video" in Coupler.io, the numbers will differ.

3. Check the Aggregate data by setting. "Auto" vs. "Page" vs. "Property" can produce different numbers for the same date range because of how Google deduplicates impressions.

4. Ensure the date range in Coupler.io exactly matches what you're viewing in the GSC UI.

5. Check the selected dimensions — adding dimensions like Query or Page changes how impressions are counted (one impression per query-page-date combination vs. one impression per page-date combination).

CTR values seem wrong or don't add up

Problem: CTR values in the export don't match manual calculations or don't sum correctly.

Fix: CTR is calculated per row as clicks ÷ impressions. It is not summable across rows. If you add CTR values from multiple rows, you'll get a meaningless number. To calculate aggregate CTR, sum the clicks and impressions separately, then divide:

Total CTR = Sum(clicks) ÷ Sum(impressions)

This is the same behavior as in the GSC UI. Coupler.io exports the per-row CTR exactly as returned by the GSC API.

Position values differ from what I see in GSC

Problem: Average position values in the export don't match the GSC UI.

Fix:

1. Position is an impression-weighted average per row. Like CTR, it is not directly summable across rows.

2. The aggregation method affects position calculation. "By Page" aggregation deduplicates by canonical URL, while "By Property" aggregates across the entire property. Ensure you're using the same aggregation method in both Coupler.io and the GSC UI.

3. If you're comparing a specific query's position, make sure the date range and filters match exactly.

Rate limits and timeouts

Timeout on large date ranges or many dimensions

Problem: The data flow times out when exporting a long date range with multiple dimensions selected.

Fix:

1. Reduce the date range. Instead of 12 months, try 3 months at a time.

2. Reduce the number of dimensions. Each additional dimension multiplies the number of rows.

3. Add dimension filters to scope the export (e.g., filter by country or device to reduce the dataset).

4. If you need a long date range with all dimensions, set up multiple data flows with non-overlapping date ranges and combine the results in your destination.

URL inspection fails with quota exceeded

Problem: The URLs index performance report fails with a quota-related error.

Fix:

1. The URL Inspection API has a daily quota limit per property. Coupler.io inspects up to 20 URLs concurrently, which can consume quota quickly.

2. Reduce the number of URLs in a single data flow. Split large URL lists across multiple flows scheduled at different times.

3. Check whether other tools or scripts are also using the URL Inspection API for the same property — they share the same quota.

4. Wait until the next day for the quota to reset and retry.