Search Console Insights Report and Query Groups for Marketers

#01What does each card show?

From Google's Insights report help page:

The data comes from Google's Web Search results, apart from the additional sources card.

#02What are query groups?

Google introduced query groups on 27 October 2025. They solve a familiar problem: dozens of variants of the same question, such as misspellings, synonyms and word order, spread across hundreds of rows. Query groups use AI to cluster queries with similar meaning and show their combined performance as Top, Trending up and Trending down.

Important limits:

• Groups are computed by AI and can be imperfect.
• They are only available for properties with a large volume of queries.
• They are recalculated as your data changes, so group names and members can shift.
• They're a reporting view only and have nothing to do with ranking.

#03How should marketers use Insights?

Our view: Insights is the right report to share with non-SEO stakeholders. It gives them trends without the risk of misreading average position.

#04Insights versus the Performance report

Use Insights for the weekly glance and the Performance report when you need to explain something.

#05Troubleshooting

#06Turning query groups into content work

A trending-up group with no page that answers it directly is a content brief. A trending-down group tied to one page is a refresh candidate. Paste the group's queries into Claude or ChatGPT and ask for the common question behind them, then check the result against the page before you write anything.

#07A weekly Insights review, in detail

1. Open with the totals card, then switch to the last 28 days vs the previous period in your head: direction only.
2. Your content, Trending down. For each page, ask: did we change it, is the topic seasonal, or did competitors publish? Open it in Performance with a Compare filter.
3. Your content, Trending up. Find out why. If a page you didn't promote is rising, it may be getting cited somewhere new. Check its generative AI impressions (lesson 7).
4. Query groups, Trending up. Copy each group's queries into your topic sheet.
5. Top countries. Look for any country new to the list.
6. Additional sources. If Discover or Video appears, schedule a look at those reports.

The whole review should take 15 minutes. If it takes longer, you're investigating; move that work to the Performance report.

#08Edge cases

• New sites may see Insights with very little in each card. It fills as data grows.
• Seasonal businesses see big Trending down lists every off-season. Compare with the same period last year in Performance before acting.
• Site migrations make trending lists unreliable for a few weeks, because new URLs appear as "trending up" and old ones as "trending down".

#09Ledgerline walkthrough: from query group to brief

1. The content lead opened the trending-up "three-way matching" group and copied its queries.
2. In Performance, a regex filter for (three|3).?way.?match confirmed the trend and showed which page received the clicks.
3. The lead wrote a brief: add a setup section, a worked example and a link to the product page.

#10Worked example: Ledgerline's trend scan

Ledgerline is a fictional accounts-payable software company. Details and numbers are illustrative.

Ledgerline's weekly Insights check showed a query group about "three-way matching" trending up while the matching guide sat in Trending down. The group contained misspellings and "3 way match" variants. The content lead found the guide answered the definition but not "how to set it up", which several queries in the group asked. The team added a setup section and annotated the date in the Performance chart. They also added three of the group's questions to the AI prompt set they test monthly.

Walkthrough

1. Click Insights in the left menu and set the date range to the last 28 days.
2. Read the Clicks and impressions card and note the direction of change.
3. In Your content, switch between Top, Trending up and Trending down. Note two pages from each.
4. In Queries leading to your site, look at the query groups. Open one to see the queries inside it.
5. Read the Branded and non-branded traffic card.
6. Read Additional traffic sources to see whether Image, Video, News or Discover matter for you.
7. Pick one trending-down page and open it in the Performance report to investigate (lesson 3).

#11Try it yourself

Run a 15-minute weekly Insights check for the next four weeks:

1. Note the top trending-up and trending-down page each week.
2. Note one query group that grew and one that shrank.
3. After four weeks, list the pages that appeared as trending down more than once. These are your refresh shortlist.

#12Quick quiz

1. Do query groups affect ranking?

Answer: No. They are an internal Search Console view.

2. Which properties get query groups?

Answer: Properties with a large volume of queries.

3. What does the Additional traffic sources card show?

Answer: Clicks from Google sources other than Web Search, such as Image, Video, News and Discover.

4. Which version of Insights does the report replace?

Answer: The standalone beta Search Console Insights.

#13What should you check before the next lesson?

• You know whether your property has Insights and query groups.
• You noted two trending-up and two trending-down pages.
• You turned one query group into a content or refresh idea.
• Read Prompt research: find the questions buyers ask to turn query groups into prompt sets.

Next: The generative AI performance report. Or return to the Search Console for Marketers track.

#14Common questions

Is Search Console Insights the same as the old standalone tool? No. The Insights report inside Search Console replaces the standalone beta version and offers similar summaries.

Can I export query groups? The Insights report is built for reading, not export. Use the Performance report and regex for exports.

How often are query groups updated? Google computes them dynamically as your data changes, so groups and their names can shift.