How to Add Someone to Google Analytics and Search Console

Of everything I ask a new client for in the first week, Google Analytics and Search Console are the two that come back with a shrug most often. Half the time the client isn't sure they have either. The other half, someone set it up years ago and the login went with them.

Both tools have a proper way to add a person, it's the same idea in each, and it takes about a minute once you're on the right screen. Getting to the right screen is the hard part, so that's most of this post.

Why you shouldn't just send your Google password

Your Google account isn't one thing. It's your email, your files, your calendar, your photos, and every other Google service you've ever signed in to. Sharing that password to let someone read your traffic reports opens the widest possible door for the narrowest possible job.

It also doesn't work well in practice. Google flags every sign-in from a new device, emails you a security alert, and asks for a code that you now have to text to the person you gave the password to. You will spend more time relaying codes than they spend in the reports.

Adding someone properly avoids all of that, because they sign in as themselves. You choose what they can see and do, and you can take it away in a few seconds without touching your own password.

Google Analytics: which role to give

Analytics has two layers, the account and the property. The account is the container, usually named after your business. The property is one website's data. Most small businesses have one of each, but the distinction matters, because you should add people at the property level. Account access covers every property in it, now and in the future, and that's more than a contractor needs.

Within a property there are five roles, listed here from least to most access.

Viewer. Can read every report and setting, and export data. Can't change anything.

Analyst. Everything Viewer can do, plus creating and sharing explorations, segments, and audiences. Still can't change settings.

Marketer. Everything Analyst can do, plus managing audiences, conversions, and the links to Google Ads. Built for someone running campaigns.

Editor. Full control of the property's settings and data streams. Can't manage other users.

Administrator. Everything, including adding and removing people. This should be you.

There are also two checkboxes called data restrictions: No Cost Metrics and No Revenue Metrics. They hide advertising spend and revenue figures from that person. For a web designer they're rarely relevant, but if you run Google Ads and don't want your spend visible, tick the first one.

Give a web designer Editor on the property. Setting up tracking is real configuration work: creating events for form submissions and phone clicks, marking the right ones as conversions, connecting Search Console, fixing the data stream when the site gets rebuilt. Editor covers all of it. Viewer doesn't, and you'll be asked to upgrade them within a week.

Give a bookkeeper, a marketing consultant, or a business partner Viewer. If all they need is the numbers, that's the role. Anyone who needs to build audiences or connect Ads gets Marketer.

Keep Administrator for yourself. A contractor with Administrator can remove you from your own property, and while nobody's likely to do that on purpose, it's the kind of mistake that happens during an agency handover when nobody's paying attention.

How to add a user to Google Analytics

1. Sign in at analytics.google.com with the Google account that owns the property.
2. Click Admin, the gear at the bottom of the left-hand menu.
3. Under Property settings, click Property access management. (If you want them on every property in the account, use Account access management under Account settings instead. For a designer, don't.)
4. Click the blue plus button in the top right, then Add users.
5. Enter your designer's email address. It has to be the address attached to their Google account, so use whatever one they gave you.
6. Choose Editor, leave the data restrictions unticked unless you have a reason, and make sure "Notify new users by email" is on.
7. Click Add.

They'll get an email and see your property the next time they open Analytics. There's no acceptance step. If they say they can't see it, the address was wrong, or they're signed in to a different Google account than the one you added.

Google Search Console: which permission to give

Search Console is simpler. There are three permission levels and one special case.

Owner. Full control, including adding and removing users and changing property settings. There are two kinds. A verified owner proved they control the website, usually by uploading a file or adding a DNS record. A delegated owner was made an owner by a verified owner without doing that. Verified owners can't be removed by anyone but themselves, and if the verification token is still on the site, they keep their access.

Full. Can see everything and take most actions: submit sitemaps, inspect URLs, request indexing, and read every report.

Restricted. Can see most reports and can't change anything.

The special case is an Associate, which isn't a person in your property. It's another Google account or product, like a YouTube channel or Google Analytics, linked to your site. You'll see it on the same screen, and you can ignore it for this.

Give a web designer Full. It covers the work: submitting the sitemap after a launch, checking why a page isn't indexed, requesting indexing on new pages, reading the search performance reports. That's everything a normal website project needs.

Give them Owner only for a specific reason, and take it back afterwards. Two things require it: connecting Search Console to Google Analytics, and using the Removals tool to pull a page out of Google. Both are one-time jobs. Make them a delegated owner for the afternoon, then drop them back to Full. Delegated owners can be removed with one click, which is the point.

Never let a contractor become a verified owner of your property unless you're one too. A verified owner can't be removed by you, only by removing their verification file or DNS record from your site. If an old agency is a verified owner of your Search Console property, that's a real problem, and the fix is finding and deleting whatever they used to verify.

How to add a user to Google Search Console

1. Sign in at search.google.com/search-console with the Google account that owns the property.
2. Choose your website from the property picker in the top left.
3. Click Settings at the bottom of the left-hand menu.
4. Click Users and permissions.
5. Click Add user.
6. Enter your designer's email address and choose Full.
7. Click Add.

They'll get an email and the property appears in their own Search Console right away.

If you don't see an Add user button, you aren't an owner. Someone else is, and the same screen will tell you who. Owners are listed with their type, so you can tell whether a former agency is a delegated owner you can remove or a verified owner you'll have to dig out.

How to remove someone

Analytics. Admin, Property access management, click the person's name, and you'll find the option to remove their access. It takes effect immediately. If they were added at the account level instead, you'll need to do it from Account access management, which is a common reason a removal appears not to stick.

Search Console. Settings, Users and permissions, the three-dot menu next to their name, then delete. Delegated owners come off the same way. Verified owners don't, and the screen will tell you why. To remove a verified owner, you have to remove the verification method they used, which the Ownership verification page under Settings will list for each owner.

Do this at the end of every project. If someone's keeping your site current on an ongoing plan, leave them, because they need it to do the job. If they finished a one-time job in the spring, take them off.

What an added user can't do

Worth stating plainly, because Google access feels like it should be all-or-nothing:

• No access to your Google account. Not Gmail, not Drive, not Photos, not Calendar.
• Not your Google Business Profile or Google Ads. Both are separate services with separate invitations.
• In Analytics, an Editor can't add or remove people. In Search Console, a Full user can't either.
• Nothing they do in either tool touches your website itself. Analytics and Search Console read data about your site; they don't change it.
• Removing them removes everything. There's no leftover key, unless they verified ownership of Search Console themselves, which is why you don't let that happen.

If you don't have either one yet

That's common, and it's not a problem. Both tools are free. If you're working with me, I'll set them up in your Google account, not mine, so you own them from day one, and add myself as an Editor and a Full user the way I've described above. That's the whole reason this post exists: the tools should be yours, and the people you hire should be guests in them.

If someone else set them up years ago inside their own account, that's the version of this worth fixing sooner rather than later. You can't add yourself to a property you don't own. Ask them to add you as an Administrator in Analytics and an owner in Search Console, and if they've disappeared, start a fresh property in your own account and let the old one go. The history is less valuable than the control.

The short version

Add people to Google Analytics at the property level as Editor, and to Search Console as Full. Keep Administrator and verified ownership for yourself. Remove people when the work is done, and check the owners list once a year to make sure nobody you've stopped working with is still there.

This is one of the five accounts I ask for at the start of every project. The others, from your domain to your Business Profile, are covered in how to share access without sharing passwords, which is the page I send instead of asking for a password.

Verified against Google Analytics and Search Console on November 3, 2026. Google moves these menus around. If your screen doesn't match, search Google's help center for "property access management" or "users and permissions" and you'll land in the right place.