GSC Performance Report

The Performance Report provides a comprehensive view of your website's Google Search performance. This interactive dashboard shows how your site appears in Google Search results, letting you track clicks, impressions, clickthrough rates, and search positions.

Site Selection and Date Range Controls

• Site Selector: Choose which of your connected GSC sites to analyze from the dropdown menu

• Date Range Picker: Select your desired analysis period (shown as 2025-05-02 to 2025-05-15)

• Comparison Period: The system automatically calculates performance changes against the previous equivalent period (shown as 2025-04-18 to 2025-05-01)

• Refresh Data: Click this button to reload the latest data from your GSC account

Performance Metrics Overview

Four key metrics are displayed prominently:

• Total Clicks: The number of times users clicked on your site in search results. The green arrow with 10% indicates a 10% increase compared to the previous period
• Total Impressions: How many times your site appeared in search results. The green arrow with 7% shows improvement over the previous period
• Average CTR: Click-through rate (percentage of impressions that resulted in clicks). Improved by 0.05 percentage points compared to the previous period
• Average Position: Your site's average ranking position in search results. Improved by 1.1 positions (lower number is better)

Performance Trend Graph

• Line chart displaying clicks (blue line) and impressions (orange line) over time

• Helps identify patterns, trends, and anomalies in your search performance

• X-axis shows dates within your selected time range

• Left Y-axis shows clicks, right Y-axis shows impressions

Top Queries/Pages Data Table

• Switch between "Top Queries" and "Top Pages" using the tabs

• Search box to filter results by keyword

• "All Devices" dropdown to filter by device type (desktop, mobile, tablet)

• Data columns include:

• QUERY: Search term used

• CLICKS: Number of clicks from this query

• IMPR: Number of impressions

• CTR: Click-through rate for the query

• POS: Average position in search results

• CLICKS Δ: Change in clicks compared to the previous period
• IMPR. Δ: Change in impressions compared to the previous period

The system calculates period-over-period changes using these methods:

• Percentage Changes (for Clicks, Impressions): Current period value divided by previous period value, minus 1, multiplied by 100

• Absolute Changes (for CTR, Position): Simple subtraction of the previous period value from the current period value

• Color Coding:
  - Green: Positive change (more clicks/impressions, higher CTR, better position)
  - Red: Negative change (fewer clicks/impressions, lower CTR, worse position)

1. Identify Trending Keywords: Look for queries with significant increases in clicks or impressions to capitalize on growing interest.
2. Spot Ranking Improvements: Queries showing position improvements (lower numbers) indicate your content is becoming more relevant for those terms.
3. Find Optimization Opportunities: High impressions with low CTR indicate that your content requires minor adjustments. In this situation, the Missing Query Helper feature is the most effective tool.
4. Track Impact of Changes: After making website updates, use the comparison feature to measure their effect on search performance.
5. Device Performance Analysis: Use the device filter to identify performance gaps between desktop and mobile users.
6. Take Action: Use the insights to guide your content optimization efforts or feed data into other GSC Action Center tools like the Missing Query Helper.