March 28th, 2023 - SEO: Google oAuth flow API upgrade (technical update)

We upgraded the Google oAuth flow API for Ads, Google My Business, and Google Search Console. The upgrade is a Quality of Life improvement for you to be able to successfully keep using current Siteimprove products and features that depend on the API.

What can the API do?

The API connection is used to fetch specific data points from Google and enrich them on our end to provide you with actionable insights to optimize your Search performance further.

• Siteimprove Ads uses the Google Ads API, which is the modern programmatic interface to Google Ads. It allows users to optimize their paid search campaigns from within our platform.
• Google My Business uses the Business Profile API, which enables users to optimize their Local SEO from within Siteimprove SEO.
• Google Search Console uses the Search Console API to provide access to the most popular reports and actions in users' Search Console accounts and query their search analytics data.

Why did we upgrade the API?

The main goal of this project was to update the current API connections to further improve the security of our integration when it comes to handling user data, which complies with Google's new guidelines.
As part of the API upgrade, we have also done some "low-hanging fruits improvements" by upgrading the following onboarding flows:

• Ads: The ability to delegate user access to accounts at scale.
• Search Console: Improved onboarding flows that enable users to select which websites they want to connect to Siteimprove.

Additional "whys"

As part of the API upgrade, we also have the ability to fetch more data points through our Google Integrations to enable our primary users to get an even deeper overview of their data in Google to find more content opportunities, such as:

1. Google My Business* will provide the ability for Siteimprove to show local keywords used by users to find local businesses online.
2. Google Search Console* will provide more granular data points, such as searchdata_site_impression or searchdata_site_impression that will be a direct enabler for Siteimprove to add them as data sources to be used for the Siteimprove Google Data Studio (GDS) connector.

*These two points are not part of the March 28 release and will be added later as an incremental release.

How to connect to the API?

Follow the steps in the guide: How to set up Google search console integration.