Google Search Console Now Tracks Your TikTok and Instagram Performance
Your TikTok videos, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and what you’ve been posting on X may have been ranking in organic search for years. The problem is there hasn’t been an easy way to see that data. Google Search was essentially invisible to anyone without a verified website property.
On July 7, 2026, Google Search Console announced “platform properties,” a new Search Console property type that lets your team track how your Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube posts perform in Google Search and Discover, with no website required. If you’re managing a social media account, this is a great new tool for your arsenal.
Below we cover what platform properties are, what each of the three reports shows, how to set one up, how this differs from Search profiles, and what to do with the data once you’re connected.
What Platform Properties Are (and What They Don’t Track)
A platform property is a property you can add to Google Search Console that lets you track which search terms lead people to your Instagram, YouTube, X, and TikTok content on Search. Instead of verifying ownership of a domain or URL prefix, you authorize Google to connect to your account on a supported social or video platform. Once connected, Search Console reports on your social and video content the same way it has always reported on websites.
Before this update, Search Console was a website-only tool. Its existing Search Console features, such as the URL inspection tool, links report, Core Web Vitals data, and organic traffic analysis, were all tied to a domain you controlled. Googlebot has long been crawling social content and displaying it in Google Search. Now, if your brand is on TikTok or YouTube, you can use Search Console to track your social performance.
Keep in mind that platform properties only show how your content performs in Google Search. Native platform data (e.g., TikTok views, Instagram likes, and YouTube watch time from the home feed) is not there. This is organic search data, not a replacement for your native analytics or your Google Ads performance reports.
The feature builds on an experiment Google ran in December 2025, which automatically pulled social channels into Search Console Insights. However, the version launched in July 2026 is meaningfully different. It’s a property type you add and verify yourself, it covers accounts where you don’t own the domain, and it feeds three dedicated reports.
*Note: neither Facebook or LinkedIn is supported at launch. Plan your measurement around the four supported platforms for now.
The Three Reports: What Each One Shows
Each platform property includes three reports. They answer different questions and are most useful at different points in a workflow.
1. Performance Report
The Performance report is the most analytically useful of the three. It shows:
- Total clicks
- Impressions
- Average CTR
- Average position
All of these are filterable by individual posts and by search query. The Performance report uses the same data structure Search Console uses for website properties, now applied to your social content.
The Queries tab shows which search terms drove organic search traffic to your posts. The data is exportable, which is useful for anyone building cross-channel reports or presenting search visibility numbers to a client or internal leadership team.
2. Insights Report
The Insights report provides a high-level view of recent traffic trends, your top-performing posts, and how people discover your account on Google. It’s the report for a quick weekly check-in, not a deep dive. It shows direction without requiring you to sort through post-level data every time you open it.
3. Achievements
Achievements tracks “click milestones” over rolling 28-day periods. It’s the lightest of the three reports and functions more as a progress marker than an analytics tool. This is useful for tracking growth directionally, but less useful for informing day-to-day content decisions.
How to Set Up a Platform Property
Setup runs through the same property selector you already use for website properties in Google Search Console.
- Go to Google Search Console.
- Open the property selector dropdown in the left sidebar and click Add property.
- Select one of the four available platforms: Instagram, TikTok, X, or YouTube.
- Follow the onscreen steps to authorize the connection.
If you manage multiple accounts or profiles on a single platform, repeat the process for each. An Instagram account and a TikTok account are separate properties, and each needs its own setup.
Google periodically re-checks ownership. If an external login expires and the connection is lost, access pauses until you re-verify. Once you do, you get immediate access to the same reports, with no waiting period for new data to accumulate.
*Note: Before you start, remember that the rollout is gradual. Google confirmed the feature will become available in the coming weeks, so if the platform options don’t appear in your account yet, wait and check again rather than assuming something went wrong with your setup.
Platform Properties vs. Search Profiles
Google released two creator-focused features in 2026, but coverage has blurred the lines between them.
- Search profiles, introduced in June 2026, are public-facing pages that consolidate a creator’s content for their followers. A Search profile is something your audience sees.
- Platform properties are private analytics that only the account owner accesses. A platform property is a reporting tool for your team.
If you’ve seen both terms and wondered which one matters for your workflow, the answer is probably both, but for different reasons at different times. Don’t let the coverage conflate them, and don’t mistake setting up one for having done the other.
What to Do Once You’re Connected
Start in the Performance report and go straight to the Queries tab. That list shows you what people searched for on Google when your content appeared. Look for clusters and repeated themes, not one-off terms. Most teams find search terms they never deliberately targeted, along with confirmation that topics they’ve been leaning into are already generating organic search interest. (I can tell you, this is one of the most fun and interesting experiences when you’re monitoring your SEO performance. You’ll find new angles into your content you never would have thought of before.)
Cross-reference those findings with your website’s organic traffic data in Search Console. If a social post is generating impressions for a query your website isn’t ranking for, that’s a gap worth addressing. You can build supporting website content around the topic, such as a blog post with strong meta descriptions, good internal links, and depth on the subject, or produce more social content around the same theme to deepen the search visibility you’re already getting.
When a TikTok video or Instagram Reel is pulling meaningful impressions for a high-intent query, treat that signal seriously. The organic search demand is real and documented. Use the social post as a proof of concept and expand it into a longer SEO asset to convert that organic traffic more deliberately.
Set this up now, even if the reports won’t get your attention for a few weeks. In a search environment that keeps shifting with AI search and AI Overviews pushing more content into results pages, knowing what’s actually reaching people matters.
FAQs
What Is the New Google Search Console Feature Announced in July 2026?
Google added platform properties: a new Google Search Console property type that lets creators track how their Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube posts perform in Google Search and Discover. No website is required to use it.
Is Google Search Console Still Relevant for Brands That Focus On Social?
Google Search Console is now more relevant than ever. Search Console required a verified website until this update, which made it, by definition, a website-only tool. Platform properties change that. A brand whose entire presence lives on TikTok or YouTube can now see organic search performance data that wasn’t visible before.
