Analyze a Search Console export

How to use the tool

In Search Console, open the Performance report, set the date range, then export: the CSV download gives one file per tab, and the export zip bundles them. Drop everything you have here, zip included: the tool reads the Queries and Pages tables, ignores the others (countries, devices, dates, filters) and also reads a file that carries the query and the page on the same row.

French and English headers are recognised (Top queries or Requêtes les plus fréquentes, Clicks or Clics, Top pages or Pages les plus populaires), as well as comma, semicolon and tab separators, decimal commas and the percent sign. The brand field is optional; the “Load an example” button fills a small fictional cross table so you can see every analysis.

The five analyses

Leads at position 8 to 20. Queries and pages whose average position is between 8 and 20 and whose impressions reach at least the median of the table. They are sorted by impressions: these are the rows to look at first. The 8 to 20 band is a setting of the tool, and an average position promises no traffic gain.¹

CTR well below the neighbours. CTR is the click count divided by the impression count.¹ The tool compares each row with rows at a close position in this same export: those within one rank, provided there are at least five. A row is flagged when its CTR falls below the first quartile of its neighbours, for rows whose impressions reach the median. The table gives the neighbours’ median CTR and the ratio. It compares the site with itself, with no reference CTR table.

Cannibalisation. It needs one row per query and page pair. For each query, the tool lists the pages that have impressions as soon as there are at least two, with the share of the top page. Two separate tables, Queries and Pages, cannot be joined: the tool says so instead of inventing a result. Two pages on one query remain a lead to check by hand. Each page counts its own impressions, so their sum can exceed those of the query in the Queries tab.²

Impressions without clicks. Queries that appeared at least once and were never clicked, sorted by impressions.

Brand and non-brand. If you enter your brand name, the tool separates the queries that contain it from the others, ignoring case, accents and spaces, and gives clicks, impressions, CTR and the share of clicks of each group.

What the Search Console figures mean

A click is a click from Google Search results to your site, an impression is an appearance in the results, and the average position is that of the topmost result from your site, averaged over the row.¹ For a page it is the topmost position of that page in the results, and several results of the same property for one query count as a single impression.²

When the tool groups rows of a cross table itself, it adds up clicks and impressions and weights the position by impressions: that is a choice of the tool, flagged in the findings, and the totals may differ from Search Console’s. Values shown as “~” or “-” in the report are zeros in the downloaded data.¹

The limits of the data

The report does not show every query: Google omits anonymized and rare queries to protect users’ privacy, so the total of a queries table stays below the site’s.³ The tables in the interface are limited to 1,000 rows, and Google’s page recommends the Search Console API to get more.³ The tool flags a table with exactly 1,000 rows, probably truncated.

The tool only reads what the file contains, it does not connect to Search Console and checks nothing in the search results. The thresholds (position 8 to 20, median impressions, first quartile, five neighbours) are settings of the tool. They order a list of leads and predict nothing.

Going further

To see whether AI Overviews change your numbers, read the article on measuring AI Overviews in Search Console. A low CTR at a good position often calls for a fresh look at the title and description: the title and meta checker verifies their length. And if you want Googlebot’s actual visits rather than impressions, the server log analyzer reads your logs.

Frequently asked questions