Track SEO Positions Google Search Console | n8n

The workflow begins with a Manual Trigger node. This is your starting point—when you click "Execute Workflow" in n8n, everything kicks off from here.

For daily automated tracking, you'll want to replace this with a Schedule Trigger node set to run once per day. But during setup and testing, the manual trigger lets you run the workflow on-demand and verify each step works correctly.

💡 Tip: Once your workflow is tested and working, swap this for a Schedule Trigger set to run at 6 AM daily. This ensures you capture yesterday's complete Search Console data before it's finalized.

This node reads your tracking configuration from Google Sheets. It fetches the list of keywords you want to track along with their target countries.

Your configuration sheet should have columns for the keyword (exact match) and the country code (like "usa" or "fra"). Each row represents one keyword-country combination to track. This setup makes it easy to add or remove keywords without modifying the workflow.

💡 Tip: Structure your configuration sheet with clear headers like "keyword" and "country". The workflow will use these column names to reference values in later nodes.

This second Google Sheets node reads the dates you want to fetch data for. By storing dates in your spreadsheet, you control exactly which historical period gets queried.

The sheet should contain a list of dates in a format that Google Search Console accepts (YYYY-MM-DD). You can pre-populate this with the last 30 days, or set it up to track specific date ranges for backfilling historical data.

💡 Tip: Google Search Console data has a 2-3 day delay. Don't include today's date or yesterday's date in your tracking—you'll get incomplete data. Start from 3 days ago.

The Split In Batches node controls how the workflow processes your date list. Setting the batch size to 1 means each date is processed individually before moving to the next.

This is crucial for API rate limiting. Google Search Console has quotas, and processing one request at a time prevents you from hitting those limits. It also makes debugging easier—if something fails, you know exactly which date caused the issue.

💡 Tip: If you're backfilling a large date range (90+ days), consider adding a Wait node after each API call with a 1-second delay. This keeps you safely under Google's rate limits.

This is the core of the workflow—the HTTP Request node that queries the Google Search Console API. It sends a POST request with your keyword filters and date parameters, then receives position and impression data in return.

The API endpoint requires OAuth2 authentication and a JSON body specifying your query parameters. The body includes the date range (same start and end date for daily data), search type (web), dimensions (query), and filters for the specific keyword and country.

JSON Body Structure:

{
  "startDate": "{{ $json['date_formated'] }}",
  "endDate": "{{ $json['date_formated'] }}",
  "searchType": "web",
  "dimensions": ["query"],
  "dimensionFilterGroups": [{
    "filters": [
      {"dimension": "query", "expression": "{{ $json['keyword'] }}", "operator": "equals"},
      {"dimension": "country", "expression": "{{ $json['country'] }}", "operator": "equals"}
    ]
  }]
}

💡 Tip: The URL must be URL-encoded. For "https://example.com/", use "https%3A%2F%2Fexample.com%2F". You can find the exact format in your Search Console property settings.

Not every keyword has ranking data for every day. If your site didn't appear in search results for a particular query on a given date, the API returns an empty response. This IF node handles that scenario.

The condition checks whether the position field exists in the API response. If data exists, the workflow continues to update the spreadsheet. If no data exists, the workflow skips the update and moves to the next date—no errors, no wasted processing.

Branch Logic:

• True branch (position does not exist): Skip to next iteration
• False branch (position exists): Continue to update Google Sheets

💡 Tip: This error handling is essential for reliable automation. Without it, the workflow would fail whenever a keyword has no data for a specific date.