How do I use the Performance report in Google Search Console?

Q: How do I use the Performance report in Google Search Console?

It shows clicks, impressions, CTR and average position for your site in Google Search, split by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date.

The Performance report for Search results shows how your site does in Google Search: clicks, impressions, average CTR and average position, broken down by query, page, country, device, search appearance and date. Pick a search type and date range, switch on the metrics you want, add filters or a comparison, then work through the table under the chart. Data normally arrives within two to three days.

The four metrics

Metric	What it counts
Clicks	Clicks from a Google Search result to your site
Impressions	Times your site appeared in results
CTR	Clicks divided by impressions
Average position	The average position of your highest result: for the whole site in the chart, for the row in the table

The detail behind each is in clicks vs impressions, average position and CTR.

Settings that change what you see

Search type. Web is the default; Image, Video and News cover those surfaces. Since 24 September 2026 there is also a multimodal type for searches made with an image, such as Google Lens or Circle to Search, which has no query data (announcement).
Date range. Three months by default, up to 16 months back. The 24-hour view shows hourly, preliminary figures, and weekly or monthly views smooth out weekday swings.
Filters. Narrow by query, page, country, device or search appearance. Query and page filters also take Custom (regex), covered in regex filters. Eligible sites get a branded queries filter, filled in by Google's own AI-assisted classifier.
Compare. Set two date ranges, or two values of one dimension such as mobile against desktop. Only one comparison runs at a time.
Annotations. Right-click the chart to add a dated note of up to 120 characters. Everyone with access to the property can see it.

A ten-minute routine

Choose the last 28 days and compare them with the previous period.
Switch on all four metrics and look for a sudden step in the chart. Annotate releases so you can explain it later.
On the Queries tab, sort by impressions. Queries with many impressions and a weak CTR are snippets worth rewriting.
On the Pages tab, look for pages that lost clicks, click one, then return to Queries to see which searches it lost.
Check Countries and Devices to make sure a drop isn't confined to one market or one kind of device.

Why the totals don't add up

Tables show at most 1,000 rows and leave out rare queries for privacy, so the chart total usually exceeds the sum of the rows (About Search Console data).
The chart is always aggregated by property, while the Pages and Search appearance tables are aggregated by page (dimensions and groupings).
Days follow Pacific Time, and the newest data is preliminary.
The API returns up to 25,000 rows per request but stops at 50,000 rows a day per search type.

What about AI Overviews and AI Mode?

Appearances in Google's AI features already count in this report. Since June 2026, Search Console also has separate generative AI performance reports for Search and Discover, which currently show impressions only, by page, country and date (and by device for Search); Google says every site had them by 31 August 2026 (announcement).

How AutoPSEO helps

AutoPSEO reads the same Search Console rows and goes further: comparisons against the previous period, month or year with weekdays matched, a branded split from brand terms you set, one-click regex presets for questions or comparisons, and reports Search Console lacks, such as the Content Decay Map, Keyword Cannibalization and CTR Benchmark. Its content engine then turns searches you appear for without a page that answers them into new articles.