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Annotations

Mark Google updates, releases and your own notes on the charts, so you can read a rise or fall against what happened.

A change in traffic means little until you know what else changed that week. Annotations are dated notes drawn as dashed lines on the charts on the Overview, page and query detail pages, and experiments.

Kinds of annotation

Kind Where it comes from
Google updates Added by us for confirmed Google core and spam updates. You cannot delete these.
Your notes Anything you add on Annotations
Releases Posted by your deployment pipeline, or added by hand
Implemented actions Added when you press Mark implemented on the Action plan, titled "SEO work implemented" and the action's title

Use the toggles above a chart to show or hide Google updates and your own annotations. On the Overview you can also hide experiments.

Add an annotation

On Annotations:

  1. Enter a title and the date. A description is optional.
  2. Choose a category, such as Custom Event or Release / Deploy.
  3. Choose the site it belongs to, or make it apply to all sites.
  4. Save.

An annotation for one site shows on that site's charts. One for all sites shows on every chart.

Delete one from the same page. Any team member can add or delete annotations.

Release markers from your deployment pipeline

If you deploy your site through a pipeline such as GitHub Actions, it can mark each release on the site's charts for you. Then a ranking change the week after a release is easy to spot.

  1. On Sites, an owner or admin opens Manage under the site and generates a release marker token. It is shown once: copy it into your pipeline's secrets.
  2. After each deploy, have the pipeline send a POST to /api/markers on your Copilot SEO address, with the token as Authorization: Bearer <token>.
curl -fsS -X POST https://your-copilot-seo-address/api/markers \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $COPILOT_SEO_MARKER_TOKEN" \
  -d title="v1.4.2: new category navigation" \
  -d ref="$GITHUB_SHA"
Field
title Needed for a new marker Up to 255 characters
ref Optional A version or commit, up to 120 characters. Posting the same ref again updates that marker instead of adding another
description Optional Up to 5,000 characters, such as the release notes
date Optional YYYY-MM-DD. Defaults to today in US Pacific time, the time zone Search Console uses for its days
category Optional release (the default) or user for a general note

A token can only add and update markers on its own site. Rotate it on Sites when someone who had it leaves, or revoke it to stop the pipeline posting.

A marker dated after the "data through" date appears on the charts once that day's data arrives.

You can also ask an AI assistant to add annotations for you. See Connect an AI assistant.

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