How to Measure Branded Search in Google Search Console

Branded search is what happens when someone already knows your name and uses Google to find you. To measure it, track the exact business name in Search Console, then check which of your pages people actually saw. Keep a separate record of what a signed-out search returned. Those observations answer different questions.

Pick one exact branded search to track

Start with the name a customer would type to reach your site. Write down the official homepage you want them to reach. For our November 6 check, those were Reson AI and resonai.world.

Run a signed-out search using the words a customer would normally type. In our initial check, a company with a similar name appeared first, and a Réson feature page appeared among the first ten organic results. Search Console reported the Réson homepage was indexed. That led us to review how the homepage and the already visible feature page described the product.

Keep spellings such as Réson AI and descriptive searches such as Reson AI marketing as separate rows in your notes. The person who adds a product word gives Google more context. Their results can differ even when both people mean the same company.

Practice on a fictional example first. Ask Pippa Ternwick about two market stalls with the same name and choose which clue tells you that you’ve found the right one.

See which pages Google showed for that query

In Search Console, open the property that covers your official URL. Choose Performance → Search results and use the Web text search type. In the Queries table, click the exact phrase to filter the report, then switch to Pages. Google’s Search Console guide explains the query-to-page view.

Record clicks, impressions, and average position for the query at the property level. Then note the landing page with the most clicks. Check whether it is your homepage, a product page, or another page that answers the search. Google can show multiple URLs from one property in the same result, so use the property total when measuring the entire site. Google’s explanation of position and impressions describes how it counts results.

If the query is absent, broaden the date range or look for a spelling variation in the query table. Google can omit low-volume and anonymized rows. Record no row in the report so the next review distinguishes missing data from a measured zero.

Compare equal windows after Google revisits the page

Record the date you updated the site. If the change was on one page, use URL Inspection to see when Google last crawled the indexed version. Then compare two equally long, complete windows using the same search type, country and device filters. A 28-day comparison includes the same number of each weekday.

Imagine a fictional workshop that tracked its exact brand for two 28-day periods. Clicks rose from 18 to 32, while impressions rose from 140 to 320. Average position moved from 4.1 to 5.2. The site earned more visits even though its average result appeared lower. The next step is to check which URLs gained impressions and whether the homepage gained clicks. Any explanation for the change needs that evidence.

Use the result to choose a single next change

• Your homepage appears, but visitors mostly click another page. Read the result titles together. Put the business name and a concrete description in the homepage heading, and link to the homepage from the relevant product or About page.
• Your homepage is missing from Google’s index. Use the indexing checklist to check the preferred URL, sitemap and indexing directives.
• Clicks rose after a release. Check the query, landing page and filters before attributing the change to the release. Look for the same pattern in a second completed period.

Keep the next review simple

Save a row with the exact query, intended URL, period dates, clicks, impressions, average position and most-clicked page. In Réson’s search visibility workspace, you can open two Search Console exports in your browser and use Match exact query to compare the same phrase across periods. Use the live Search Console report for the query-to-page view.

For a broader look at two competing landing pages, use our landing-page comparison walkthrough.