Susanna Dashboard

Dashboards & reports

What is on each report, and how to use the tables, filters and date picker.

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Dashboards

A dashboard is one Search Console site. The sites you have added are listed in the left sidebar, under Sites. Open a site to see its reports listed beneath it: its Overview, the reports you have added to it, and Add report.

The overview of all your sites

The first item in the sidebar is the Overview. It adds all your sites together: total clicks, total impressions, average CTR and average position, plus a table that lists every site with its numbers side by side. Use it to see which site needs attention first.

Your websites list

The table of websites looks and works like the other tables. Sort it by any column, also by how much a number moved. Each website shows its favicon (switch it off in the table’s settings), its domain and your categories.

  • Names and categories: open the Websites section’s settings and look under Your websites. Give a website a Name of your own, which then replaces its name everywhere in the app, and put it in Categories such as the name of a client. To do several at once, press the button beside Website in the header of the table, tick the websites and press Categorise. A website can be in up to 10 categories, and a category with no websites left is gone. Names and categories are yours: other people who see the same website have their own.
  • Search: type in the box above the table. Every word you type has to be in a website’s name, its domain or one of its categories; Esc clears it. The list of categories beside it, with how many websites each has, shows only one category (or the websites in none), and so do the categories under a website’s name when you press one.
  • Top performers and Worst performers: while you compare dates, the tabs over the table show up to 10 websites that gained the most clicks, or lost the most, of those whose change is clear (the same rule as the Trend filter below). The search and the category apply first.
  • Columns shows or hides the clicks trend, the numbers and the categories. Click the clicks trend of a website, the small chart in its row, to see its history, as a click on its numbers does.
  • Filters: press Filters above the table. Trend shows only the websites whose clicks clearly grew (Growth) or fell (Loss) since the dates you compare with: the change has to be at least 5% and more than chance alone explains, so a site with a handful of clicks does not swing between the two. Category shows only the websites in that category. Both filters can be on together, and Reset filters clears them and the search.
  • Export CSV saves the websites that are listed, in the order you sorted them and with the columns that are shown.

The reports of a site

Every site has an Overview: the four widgets, the history chart of the average position, and the tables (search queries, AI searches, top pages, countries, devices and search appearance). Any other report you add yourself. The lightbulb with a number in the top bar opens the site’s Recommendations.

Adding a report

Press Add report under a site in the sidebar. A window asks how you want to start:

  • From a template, a ready-made report of the site – each one with a small picture of what it starts with:

    Template What it shows
    Rank tracker How your queries move and where they rank: Position changes, the average position, the clicks and First positions at the top, and the queries under them, with a watchlist. Like every report, it starts plain and white.
    Full report Everything the site’s Overview has.
    AI searches The long, conversational searches that people use to find you.
    Pages The pages that get the most clicks and impressions.
    Recommendations What to do next: findings from your numbers.
    Devices How your clicks and impressions split between desktop, mobile and tablet.

  • Blank: only a title. Everything else is added with the + button between the sections in edit mode: the widgets, the history charts, any of the tables, recommendations, and texts, images, buttons, space and lines of your own.

Then you name the report, and it opens. It appears in the sidebar under the site, and you can rename or delete it in its settings (edit mode, the Report group at the top). A site can have 12 reports of its own. Each report is styled on its own: see Styling & settings.

AI searches

An AI search is a search of five words or more: the long, conversational kind people type, or say, when they talk to an AI.

The report lists each of them with how often your site was seen for it (Impressions), the most seen first. Two widgets above the table show the total impressions and how many different searches there are. Press Query or Impressions to sort by that column, and press it again to reverse the order. Export CSV saves the list.

Widgets

The widgets at the top of a report show the four main numbers: Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Avg. position. Each one shows:

  • the number for the dates you picked,
  • how it changed compared with the dates you chose to compare with, as a percentage,
  • a small graph of how it moved day by day.

The change is green when it is good news and red when it is not. Position is the other way round from the rest: a lower number is better, so a position that falls is shown in green.

Click a widget to see the history of its number: a daily chart in a window over the report. Drag over the small overview under the chart to zoom into some days, and press Use these dates in report to take them to the whole report. The tabs at the top (Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Average position) switch to the other numbers and keep the zoom; Esc, the close button or a click outside closes the window. This works on a site’s reports, not on the overview, which adds all your sites together.

Over the chart the window says where the number is heading in the days shown: Trend is up or Trend is down, with how much (a percentage, or positions for the average position), and a dashed straight line across the chart. The line is fitted so that one odd day or a Google update does not tilt it, and it is only drawn when the change is at least 5% (half a position) and larger than the ups and downs from day to day explain. Otherwise it says No clear trend, and under 14 days Too few days for a trend. It follows the zoom.

Click a number in a table to see the history of that row alone. In the search queries table a click on the position, clicks, impressions or CTR of a query opens the same window, with the history of just that query; the AI searches, the pages, countries, devices and search appearances work the same way. In the overview’s list of websites a click on a number shows that website’s history. A row that was seen on too few days has no history to draw.

Google updates are marked on every history chart: a thin dashed line on the day Google announced a ranking update (a core update, a spam update …), with a small Google G on it. Click or tap the G, or press Enter on it, for a small box with the update’s name, the days it rolled out, a few words from Google about that kind of update and a link to Google’s announcement (and to Google’s own article, where there is one). Esc or a click elsewhere closes it. When several updates are close together the G’s stand one under the other.

Position changes and First positions

Two more widgets, which you can add to a site’s report (in edit mode, Add widget). Only a report from the Rank tracker template starts with them. They look at where the individual queries rank:

  • Position changes is how many queries moved in the dates you picked: the ▲ green number moved up, the ▼ red number moved down. The bars show it day by day, the ones that moved up above the line and the ones that moved down below it. A query counts as having moved on a day when its position is at least two places better or worse than on the last day it was seen, and there were at least three impressions behind both positions. Fewer are too few to say anything: Search Console gives the average position of a day, and with a couple of impressions it jumps around.
  • First positions is how many queries rank first (by their average position over the dates), with the change since the dates you compare with. The bars show, day by day, how the queries are spread over the places: first, 2–3, 4–10, 11–30 and beyond, and the list under them says how many are in each, and how that changed. More queries in the lower places is shown in green; more in the last place, in red.

Both are about the queries that were seen: Search Console has no position for a query that was not shown.

In edit mode a click on a widget picks it instead, and you can drag the widgets into a different order. The widgets, how many are in a row, their graphs and whether each is a card can be changed in Styling & settings.

The date picker

The date picker in the top bar sets the period that every number, graph and table covers.

  • Presets: Today, Past 7 days, Past 30 days, Past 90 days, Past 6 months and Past 12 months. Past 30 days is the default.
  • Custom: any start and end date.
  • Compare with: the previous period (the same number of days straight before), the same period last year, custom dates, or no comparison.

The search queries table

The table lists the searches that showed your site, with these columns:

Column What it shows
Query The words that were searched for, a small star in front of the ones on your watchlist, and the tags you gave them after them (see below).
Intent What the search is probably for: I informational, C commercial, T transactional, N navigational. A legend under the table says the same. Off to start with: switch it on in Columns.
Pos.now The position on the latest day that has data. A line shows the last two weeks. A trophy means it ranks, on the first page, as well as it did on any day of the dates.
Pos.Avg The average position over the dates you picked, a line of how it moved, and how much it changed. Off to start with.
ATH The best position the query had on any single day within the dates. Point at it to see the day. Off to start with.
Clicks How many times people clicked through to your site.
Impressions How many times your site was shown.
CTR Clicks divided by impressions. Off to start with.
Top ranking page The page of your site that Google showed most for the query in the dates you picked (the most impressions, then the most clicks). Page data comes in only after a day has settled, about six days, so the newest days are not counted. Press it to open the page in a new tab.
SERP A link that searches Google for the query (in a new tab), so you can see the results page as it is now.

The small lines next to the numbers show how each one moved over the dates. After a number comes its change compared with the dates you chose to compare with: how much, an arrow up when the number is higher (for a position, up when it improved, that is when its number went down), in green when that is better and red when it is worse. The widgets at the top write their changes the same way. See Metrics explained for how each number is worked out.

Tabs, selecting, the watchlist and tags

  • Tabs over the table choose which queries it shows, one at a time. Most of them are lists, so the row stays short: press a tab to choose from its list, which says how many queries each choice has; once one is chosen the tab says which, for example “318 ranking 4–10”. The row is: all of them · Ranking (1–3, 4–10, 11–20 or 21+, by the average position of the dates) · Type (brand, non-brand when the brand’s own words are in some queries, and the long searches of 5+ words) · Worth a look (opportunities, almost page one, low CTR) · New & lost · My lists (the Watchlist and your tags). A choice with no queries is left out of its list, and a tab left with one choice is just that choice. The tabs go with the filters: a tab and the filters narrow the table together. Show tabs in the table’s settings switches the whole row off for a calmer table (see Styling & settings).
  • New queries are those seen for the first time in the dates – never before, in everything the app has stored of the site. It needs at least four weeks of earlier data behind the dates, so it appears only when there is.
  • Lost queries were seen in the period before the dates (at least three impressions) and not at all in the dates. They are worked out from the days the app has stored, not from a list Google gives. The tab shows when each was last seen, and the numbers it had then; the columns and the numbers are from that earlier period, which a line under the tabs spells out.
  • The star puts a query on the watchlist. The stars to press are there while you work with queries (below); the rest of the time a query on the watchlist has a small filled star in front of it. The watchlist is kept with the site, so every report of the site has the same one, and it gets a tab of its own: Watchlist. It holds at most 100 queries. Mark starred queries in Columns hides the small stars.
  • Work with queries: press the button beside Query in the header of the table – the stars and the boxes in front of the queries are not there until you do. Star queries, or tick them one by one, or all of the page from the box in the header, and a bar over the table says what can be done with the ones ticked: add them to the watchlist (or take them off it), Tag them, Export selected (a CSV of them, with the same dates and columns) or clear the selection. Done, or the same button again, ends it. The ticks stay while you go to other pages of the table.
  • Tags are words of your own for queries – “to do”, “client asked”, “blog”. Tag opens a list of your tags, each switched on for all of the ticked queries, some of them or none of them (press one to give it to all of them, or to take it off all of them when all have it), and a field to make a new one. A site can have 12 tags with 100 queries each. The tags show after the queries’ words (press one to see the queries with that tag), every tag has a tab of its own, and a tag with no queries left is gone. Tags are kept with the site, like the watchlist, and they are in the CSV. Columns can hide them.
  • Intent is a guess from the words of the query, in English and Finnish: a question or a guide is informational, “best”, a review or a comparison is commercial, “buy”, a price or an order is transactional, and the brand’s own words or a login are navigational. A query can be more than one, and a short one that fits none has none. It is only a guess, as Search Console does not say.

When the table is narrow it leaves out, first, the small lines, then the link to Google, the intent and the page – see Styling & settings.

Sort

Every column of every table can be sorted, and it works the same everywhere:

  • Press the name of a column to open a small menu. For words it offers A to Z or Z to A. For a column with a change – the clicks, impressions, CTR and positions, in the table of queries and of your websites, while you compare dates – it asks what to order by: the column’s own number (for example Clicks) or its Change Δ, how much it moved since the dates you compare with. Choosing the change turns the name into “Clicks Δ”. Original order puts the table back.
  • Press the arrow beside the name to turn the order the other way round in one press: for the number, the biggest first or the smallest first (for a position, the best first or the worst first); for the change, the most grown first (for a position, the most improved) or the most lost. A column that is not sorted yet starts with the biggest numbers, A, or the best position first. Choosing another thing to order by keeps the way round.
  • The change is ordered the way the table shows it: for clicks, impressions and CTR by the share they moved (a query that came from nothing, marked New, counts as the biggest growth), for a position by the places it moved. A query that was not there in the compared dates has no change for its CTR or position, so it comes last whichever way round.

The arrow shows which way a column is sorted, and the name turns to the report’s accent color while it is the one in use.

Filters

Press Filters to narrow the table down. The filters work together, and with the tab that is open.

  • Search: type words to find queries. Every word you type has to be in the query, in any order.
  • Ranges: a least and a most for each of Clicks, Impressions, Avg. position, CTR (in percent) and Words – fill in one of them or both, in any number of the rows. Clicks 10 or more and impressions 100 or more: type 10 and 100 in the “min” fields. Clicks between 5 and 10: type 5 and 10 in the two fields of Clicks. A position of 10 or better: type 10 in the “max” field of Avg. position. A comma works as the decimal mark. A row with something that is not a number, or a least above the most, turns red and is not applied until it is right. Each row has a slider with two handles too: drag them, or use the arrow keys (Page Up and Page Down move further, Home and End to the ends). The far left means no least and the far right no most, and the boxes and the slider follow each other. Over them the panel says how many queries match.
  • The button says how many filters are on, and Reset filters clears them at once (the tab stays). On the Lost tab the ranges are about the numbers the queries had.

The groups that used to be filters – the position bands, brand and non-brand, and the groups worth a closer look – are the tabs over the table. In Worth a look, a position is the average position over the dates, rounded to a whole place:

  • Opportunities: seen a lot but clicked too little. These rank 20th or better with a CTR under 10%. A query scores its impressions × (10% − its CTR), the clicks it misses compared with a CTR of 10%.
  • Almost page one: ranking 11–20 and seen a lot. These have the shortest climb to the first page. A query scores its impressions.
  • Low CTR: on page one, but clicked much less than that position usually is. These rank 1–10 with a CTR under 30% divided by the position (30% at 1st, 15% at 2nd, 10% at 3rd and so on). A query scores its impressions × (that CTR − its own CTR). The title or description may not make people want to click.
  • 5+ words: queries of five words or more.

Each of the first three keeps only the queries that score at least 5% of the best score in the dates, so it shows the few that matter. They are listed like any other tab: most clicks first, unless you sort.

Columns

Press Columns to show or hide columns, so the table holds only what you need. The list also has Mark starred queries and Tags, which are not columns but part of the query’s cell: switch them off for a table with only the words.

Page size

Choose how many queries to show per page: 10, 50, 100, 500, 1000 or All. 100 is where every list of queries starts. Sizes larger than the list are not offered, so a short list shows All instead. Use the arrows under the table to move between pages.

Export CSV

Export CSV saves every row that matches your filters, in the order you sorted them and with the columns you have switched on. The file name contains the dates. It opens in Excel and other spreadsheets with letters like ä and ö intact.

Tip: a query can contain anything, including characters that a spreadsheet would read as a formula. Those cells are marked so that they are shown as text and never run.

Other tables

Top pages, Countries, Devices and Search appearance work in the same way: they list clicks, impressions, CTR and position for each page, country, device or appearance, and follow the dates you picked.