Note: These options are only available to Admin users. If you are unsure who the admins are in your organization, please email support@keylimetoolbox.com for help.

A reporting group contains any combination of domains, subdomains, and subfolders. Keylime Toolbox aggregates and de-duplicates the data (as described here) and makes it available as one comprehensive set of data.

Since Keylime Toolbox pricing is per reporting group, there’s no additional charge for adding subfolders, subdomains, or domains into a reporting group.

Data Considerations When Adding To a Reporting Group

When you add to a reporting group, Keylime Toolbox imports data to the first available data from Google Search Console and then reprocesses all data in the reporting group.

Generally, Google Search Console provides 90 days of historical data, but for subfolders, Google often begins storing data when the subfolder is verified.

If you add subfolders, subdomains, or domains to a reporting group after the reporting group has been gathering data for a while, you will see an increase in data (particularly provided queries and impressions) once the new data begins aggregating.

  • If you are adding only subfolders and subdomains and Google Analytics data is integrated, traffic/visit data will not change (as total traffic is based on Google Analytics data).
  • If Google Analytics data is not integrated or you are adding domains, traffic/visit data may increase as you add to the reporting group.

Key Reasons To Add to a Reporting Group

You might want to aggregate data from multiple domains, subdomains, or subfolders into a single reporting group to:

  • Recover “not provided” data: Recover additional “not provided” queries from Google Search Console by adding subfolders (as described here)
  • Aggregate subdomain data: Get a comprehensive view of data from all subdomains associated with a domain (since Google Search Console reports data for each subdomain separately. In particular, if you use one Google Analytics tag for all subdomains, you should aggregate those subdomains into one reporting group in Keylime Toolbox so that you get an accurate view of Google Search Console and Google Analytics data.
  • Monitor site moves: If you move from http to https or from one domain to another, for example, you can aggregate data from the original location and the new location into one reporting group so that historical data is available for trends and comparisons.
  • Get comprehensive reporting: If you manage multiple sites, you may want to monitor aggregate data for all sites (in addition to reporting for each site individually).

Add Subfolder Data To An Existing Reporting Group

Note about subfolder data: When a domain is added to Google Search Console, typically 90 days of data are available right away. However, in many cases, Google only begins collecting data for subfolders when they are verified for the first time.

When you add a subfolder to Google Search Console, you may initially see a “no data available” message. Unless the subfolder receives too little data to report (see below for more on this), you should begin to see data collect within a few days. In these cases, 90 days of historical data will not be available.

no data available

To add subfolder data to an existing reporting group to recover additional “not provided” query data:

  1. Determine the subfolders that will be useful to add.
  2. Add the subfolders or email us with the list to add.
  3. Verify the subfolders have been added.
  4. Note the date of increased data.

Determining which subfolders to add

Your site may have hundreds or thousands of subfolders. Should you add them all for optimal data collection? Not necessarily.

Let’s say the structure of your site is the following:

  • www.example.com
  • www.example.com/folder1
  • www.example.com/folder2
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder3
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder4
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder5

Google Search Console includes “top” queries at each level, which means that some data from folder1, folder2, folder3, and folder4 will be included in the data for www.example.com, some data from folder4 will be included in the data for folder2, and so on.

That’s why Keylime Toolbox removes duplicates when aggregating data from subfolders.

It also means that you don’t need to add all subfolders to the reporting group in order to get maximum query coverage.

To determine which folders will provide additional query data, look at traffic data from the folders in your web analytics program. Look for subfolders that receive substantial traffic.

For instance, the sample site structure above might have one of the following traffic patterns:

Example Traffic Pattern A:

  • www.example.com
  • www.example.com/folder1 – 25%
  • www.example.com/folder2 – 10%
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder3- 3%
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder4 – 1%
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder5 – 6%

Example Traffic Pattern B:

  • www.example.com
  • www.example.com/folder1 – 1%%
  • www.example.com/folder2 – 80%
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder3 – 40%
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder4 – .5%
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder5 – .5%

With traffic pattern A, you might add the following subfolders:

  • www.example.com/folder1
  • www.example.com/folder2
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder5

With traffic pattern B, you might add the following subfolders:

  • www.example.com/folder1
  • www.example.com/folder2
  • www.example.com/folder2/folder3

With only five subfolders, you could easily add all of them. But analyzing traffic patterns to determine which subfolders to add is helpful when your site includes hundreds or thousands of subfolders. Typically some significantly smaller number of subfolders comprise the majority of the traffic and Google Search Console often reports no data at all for subfolders with very little traffic.

Add the subfolders with the majority of the traffic first and then add a few subfolders with less traffic. Once you find that Google Search Console is no longer reporting data, you know that adding additional subfolders won’t yield more data.

Generating traffic pattern data:

You can generate this data in a number of ways. Here’s one way to get this data from Google Analytics:

  1. Create a new segment that specifies Traffic Sources as:
    • Medium contains organic
    • Source contains googlegoogle analytics create google organic segment
  2. Name and save the segment.
  3. Select and apply the segment.
    selecting a segment in google analytics
  4. Select Behavior > Site Content > Landing Pages to see the traffic to all pages to the site from Google organic search.
    google analytics landing pages
  5. Depending on how your site is structured:
    • You may see the list of top subfolders listed, with the Google organic traffic percentage in the Sessions column.
    • You may need to filter by subfolder to see the aggregate percentage to all URLs in that subfolder.
    • You may need to exclude subfolders to see the aggregate percentage of all URLs under the root.
      filtered landing pages
  6. As described above, make note of which subfolders comprise most of the Google organic traffic.

Adding Subfolders

To add subfolders to a reporting group in Keylime Toolbox, simply add those subfolders to Google Search Console and then add acccounts@keylimetoolbox.com as a user to those folders. Keylime Toolbox will aggregate the subfolder data into the reporting group that contains the root domain automatically.

If you want to add a large number of subfolders, Keylime Toolbox can automate the process for you as described below.

Adding a small number of subfolders

If you have a small number of subfolders to add, you can simply add the subfolders to Google Search Console and add accounts@keylimetoolbox.com as a user to them.

If you add these subfolders to a Google Search Console account that has owner access to the root domain, all subfolders you add will automatically verify in the account.

Once you have added accounts@keylimetoolbox.com as a user to the subfolders in Google Search Console, Keylime Toolbox will automatically aggregate them  into the reporting group that contains the root domain.

Adding a large number of subfolders

If you have a large number of subfolders to add, Keylime Toolbox can automate this process via the Google API. However, in order to do this, Keylime Toolbox (accounts@keylimetoolbox.com) must have owner access to the root domain in Google Search Console.

Once you have added accounts@keylimetoolbox.com as an owner to the root domain in Google Search Console, email support@keylimetoolbox.com with the list of subfolders you would like added.

Keylime Toolbox will add these subfolders via the API and aggregate them into the reporting group that contains the root domain.

If you aren’t able to add accounts@keylimetoolbox.com as an owner to the root domain, you can instead follow the instructions above, under “Adding a small number of subfolders”.

Verifying the subfolder data is being aggregated into the reporting group

The subfolder data will be aggregated into the reporting group that contains the matching domain automatically within 24-48 hours. While data is processing, you’ll see a “pending” flag.

To see the full list of what’s contained in the reporting group,

  1. On the top right menu next to your name, choose Settings, then choose Reporting Groups from the menu on the left.
  2. Click the View/Edit/Sites/Subfolders link to the right of the reporting group name.

If the subfolders that you added are not listed, email us at support@keylimetoolbox.com and we’ll work with you to ensure all subfolders are aggregated correctly.

Adding Additional Subdomains or Domains to An Existing Reporting Group

To aggregate data from subdomains or additional domains into an existing reporting group:

  1. On the top right menu next to your name, choose Settings, then choose Reporting Groups from the menu on the left.
  2. Click the View/Edit/Sites/Subfolders link to the right of the reporting group name.
  3. Under the Add domains or subdomains to this reporting group, click the Add another site (domain or subdomain) link.
    add domain to a reporting group
  4. Indicate the URL of the domain or subdomain (including http or https and www, if applicable).
  5. Indicate the Google Analytics property ID and view ID you’d like to include for the domain, if applicable.
  6. Add add accounts@keylimetoolbox.com as a user to the domain or subdomain in both Google Search Console and Google Analytics (if applicable).
  7. If you’d like to add an additional domain or subdomain to the reporting group, click the Add another site (domain or subdomain) link.

The data will be aggregated into your account automatically. Keylime Toolbox will import 90 days of historical data, if available, and reprocess all segments.

Verifying the additional domain/subdomain data is being aggregated into the reporting group

The  data will be aggregated into the reporting group within 24-48 hours. While data is processing, you’ll see a “pending” flag.

To see the full list of what’s contained in the reporting group,

  1. On the top right menu next to your name, choose Settings, then choose Reporting Groups from the menu on the left.
  2. Click the View/Edit/Sites/Subfolders link to the right of the reporting group name.

If the domains/subdomains that you added are not listed, email us at support@keylimetoolbox.com and we’ll work with you to ensure all data is aggregated correctly.