What is Google Search Console?

Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website's presence in Google Search results. It shows you which queries bring users to your site, your indexing status, and any issues Google encounters when crawling your pages.

What permissions does Better Analyst need?

Better Analyst only requires read-only access to your Google Search Console data. We use OAuth 2.0 to authenticate securely through Google's official API. We never modify your search settings or submit any changes to your property.

How do I connect Google Search Console to Better Analyst?

Click "Connect Google Search Console," sign in with your Google account, and select the property you want to analyze. The entire process takes less than a minute. No API keys or manual configuration needed.

What data can I analyze with Better Analyst?

You can analyze all standard Search Console metrics including clicks, impressions, average CTR, average position, search queries, landing pages, device breakdown, country data, indexing status, and more. Ask any question in plain English.

Is my Google Search Console data secure?

Yes. We use enterprise-grade OAuth 2.0 authentication provided by Google. Your credentials are never stored on our servers. Data is encrypted in transit and at rest. We maintain read-only access and never modify your search settings.

Can I compare time periods in my search data?

Absolutely. You can ask Better Analyst to compare any time periods — for example, "Compare this month's clicks to last month" or "Show me year-over-year changes in impressions." The AI handles the date calculations automatically.

Branded vs Non-Branded Keywords: Search Console Report

Split Google Search Console clicks into branded and non-branded queries with a regex, track each trend, and see whether SEO growth is real. Fields and sample.

By David Bressler
Published October 29, 2026
Updated October 29, 2026

Summary

A brand vs non-brand report splits Search Console queries by whether they contain your brand name or its variants, then trends clicks, impressions and CTR for each group. Non-brand growth is the clearest sign that SEO is reaching new people; brand growth mostly reflects awareness built elsewhere.

On this page

Who this report is for
What the report includes
How to build it in Better Analyst from Google Search Console
Questions to ask
Sample output
Charts to use
Keep it up to date
Further reading
FAQ

Who this report is for

SEO teams and agencies reporting organic performance to leadership or clients who want to separate demand the brand already had from traffic SEO actually earned.

What the report includes

Metrics and dimensions in this report

Metric	Source field	Why it matters
Query	query	Classified as brand or non-brand with a case-insensitive pattern of your brand terms and misspellings.
Date	date	Daily rows rolled up to weeks or months to trend each segment.
Clicks	clicks	The outcome to compare between branded and non-branded search.
Impressions	impressions	Shows whether non-brand visibility is growing even before clicks follow.
CTR	ctr	Branded CTR is usually far higher; mixing the two hides changes in either.
Average position	position	Tracks non-brand ranking progress separately from brand terms you already own.

How to build it in Better Analyst from Google Search Console

In Better Analyst, open Connectors, choose Add Connector, then Google Search Console.
Click Connect with Google and allow read-only access, using an account with Owner or Full user access to the property.
Select the URL-prefix or domain property you want to report on and click Connect.
Give Better Analyst your brand terms, including misspellings and product names, for example 'acme|acmee|acme analytics'.
Ask it to label each query brand or non-brand with that pattern and summarise clicks, impressions, CTR and position by month for each group.
Save the brand pattern in a Data Context note or agent instructions so every future report uses the same definition.

Questions to ask

“Split clicks into brand and non-brand queries by month for the last 12 months using the pattern acme|acmee.”
“What share of organic clicks came from non-brand queries last quarter compared with the quarter before?”
“Which non-brand queries gained the most clicks this month?”
“Show brand versus non-brand CTR by device.”

Sample output

Sample data for illustration, not real account data.

Sample data: monthly brand vs non-brand split (illustrative)

Month	Brand clicks	Non-brand clicks	Non-brand share	Non-brand impressions	Non-brand CTR
Jul 2026	8,240	11,960	59.2%	612,000	1.95%
Aug 2026	8,410	12,880	60.5%	655,400	1.97%
Sep 2026	8,090	14,310	63.9%	702,900	2.04%

Charts to use

Brand vs non-brand clicks (Stacked column chart): Monthly clicks split into the two segments, so you can see which one is driving growth.
Non-brand share of clicks (Line chart): The proportion of organic clicks earned from non-brand searches over time.

Keep it up to date

A monthly scheduled task can rerun the split with the saved brand pattern and post the chart to Slack. An alert on non-brand clicks (for example a drop of more than 15% versus the previous week) catches ranking losses early.

Frequently asked questions

How do I define branded queries?

List your company name, product names, common misspellings and domain, and match them case-insensitively, for example acme|acmee|acme\.com. Review the unmatched top queries once to catch variants you missed.

Why does the brand plus non-brand total not equal the site total?

Search Console's site totals include anonymized queries that never appear as query rows, so the sum of classified queries is lower than the property total. Report the anonymized remainder separately.

Does Search Console have a built-in brand filter?

Filters in the Search Console interface vary; the API returns raw queries, so a regex you control gives a stable definition that works the same way in every report.