I Wired Google Search Console Into My Publishing Pipeline and Immediately Hit Someone Else's Google Account
I'd been checking my blog's search traffic by hand -- log into Search Console, click the property, read two numbers, close the tab -- often enough that wiring it into a script felt like an obvious next step. What I didn't expect was to spend the first ten minutes of that "obvious next step" locked out of my own property by a Google account I'd forgotten I was signed into. Why I wanted this as a…
The reporter connected Google Search Console to a publishing pipeline and accidentally accessed someone else's Google account. The search traffic tracking was conducted manually, but the reporter wanted a script to automate the process. He integrated the Search Console API into the Python script, reusing the same client secret and installed-app-flow pattern.
The script initially showed no properties, but after switching accounts, it worked correctly. However, the script failed with a 400 error due to an invalid date format. The reporter resolved this by converting the date string to ISO format. Once the bugs were fixed, the script produced the same information as the manual process, reporting clicks, impressions, average CTR, and average position over the past 28 days.
The main lesson learned was that when encountering a 403 error, checking which account actually authorized the token should be the first step.
Written by urgent.news from Dev.to's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
