Personal experiments conducted by ZipTie co-founder Tomasz Rudzki suggest potential issues with Google Search Console’s query reporting.
Rudzki’s individual tests indicate that Google Search Console may overlook many conversational searches. While his findings are intriguing, keep in mind they represent limited testing rather than a comprehensive study.
Simple Tests Suggest Potential Data Gaps
Rudzki began with a basic experiment on his own website.
For several days, he searched Google using the same conversational question from different devices and accounts. These searches directed traffic to his site, which he could verify through other analytics tools.
However, when he checked Google Search Console for these specific queries, he found nothing. “Zero. Nada. Null,” as Rudzki put it.
To get additional data points, Rudzki asked 10 other SEO professionals to try the same test. According to his report, all received similar results: their conversational queries were not found in GSC data, even though the searches appeared to generate traffic.
Search Volume May Affect Query Reporting
Rudzki’s experiments suggest that Google Search Console might use a minimum search volume threshold before tracking queries. Based on his testing, a search term may need to reach a certain number of searches before appearing in reports. According to additional tests mentioned by Rudzki’s colleague Jakub Łanda, when queries become popular enough to track, historical data from before that point may not be available. This is also based on limited testing.
Consider how people might search for iPhone information:
- “What are the pros and cons of the iPhone 16?”
- “Should I buy the new iPhone or stick with Samsung?”
- “Compare iPhone 16 with Samsung S25”
Each question may receive only 10-15 searches per month individually. However, these variations combined could represent hundreds of searches about the same topic.
Based on his experiments, Rudzki believes GSC often overlooks these low-volume variations, despite their potential combined impact.
Google Shows AI Answers But May Not Report All Queries
Rudzki notes an interesting observation: Google clearly understands conversational queries.
He analyzed 140,000 questions from People Also Asked data and found that Google shows AI Overviews for 80% of these conversational searches.
Rudzki observed:
“So it seems Google is ready to show the AI answer on conversational queries. Yet, it struggles to report conversational queries in one of the most important tools in SEO’s and marketer’s toolkits.”
Potential Implications If Verified
If Rudzki’s findings are confirmed through more comprehensive testing, they could have significant implications for SEO strategy.
Content teams might be creating articles based on incomplete keyword data. SEO professionals could be optimizing for visible queries while overlooking valuable conversational searches that potentially go unreported.
Performance analysis might be less reliable if pages appear to underperform in GSC but draw significant unreported traffic. Teams might also miss emerging trends, as new topics could only become apparent after reaching high search volumes.
Suggested Approaches Based on These Findings
While awaiting more comprehensive research, Rudzki suggests several approaches:
- Consider that GSC may only show part of the picture and adjust strategies accordingly.
- Switch from the Query tab to the Pages tab to identify which content drives traffic, regardless of specific search terms.
- Focus on creating comprehensive content that fully answers questions rather than targeting individual keywords.
Lastly, supplement GSC data with additional research methods to understand conversational search patterns. Consider how users interact with AI assistants, as that’s increasingly how they search.
What This Means for the Future
These initial findings suggest a potential gap between how people search and what tracking tools report. Voice search is gaining popularity, with approximately 20% of individuals worldwide using it regularly. AI tools are training users to ask detailed, conversational questions.
If further testing confirms these observations, it would be valuable for Google to address any reporting gaps. Until then, SEO strategies might benefit from multiple data sources and approaches that account for potentially unreported search traffic. The complete details of Rudzki’s experiments and instructions to replicate his tests can be found in ZipTie’s original blog post.
Editor’s note, this article was edited for clarity that Tomasz’s research was from his own personal research and to remove any emphasis that the findings were from a data study.
