Search Console query sorter

How it works

Search Console's Performance export comes as a zip. Public 2026 exports hold Chart.csv (one row per day), Queries.csv, Pages.csv, Countries.csv, Devices.csv, Search appearance.csv and Filters.csv. Google does not document the layout, so the sorter reads each table by its shape rather than its file name: web addresses mean pages, dates mean the chart, device names mean devices. If a file is read as the wrong table, change "Read as".

How a search lands in a bucket

Each bucket is a regex. The page runs re2js, a JavaScript version of RE2, with Search Console's defaults: a pattern can match anywhere in a search, and capitals are ignored. In first match wins, buckets are checked from the top and a search goes into the first one it matches, so the totals add up. Order matters: put the narrow buckets first. In all matches, a search counts in every bucket it matches, so you can see the overlap, but the totals no longer add up.

A pattern Search Console cannot run, such as one with look-ahead (?!, is skipped and marked "Fix the pattern". In a live Search Console check on 21 October 2026, a look-ahead pattern was accepted without a warning and then showed no data, so it is better to catch it here.

The numbers

• CTR for a bucket is its total clicks divided by its total impressions, which is how Google defines CTR. Averaging the CTR of each row would give a different, wrong answer.
• Position for a bucket is the average of each search's position, weighted by its impressions. It is labelled approx. because Search Console's own figure also counts searches it does not list.
• Coverage is the impressions in Queries.csv divided by the impressions in Chart.csv. Google leaves out anonymised queries, ones not searched by more than a few dozen people over two to three months, from the queries table, but keeps them in chart totals. In the example export, 15,825 of 19,400 impressions are in the queries table (coverage 81.6%); the other 3,575 belong to searches Google keeps private Example data.
• Pages are counted per page, so page totals can be higher than the chart total. The sorter never compares them.
• Rows: the Search Console interface exports at most 1,000 rows, so a busy site's export is its top searches, not all of them.

Back to Search Console

"Copy this bucket's regex" copies the pattern. In the Performance report click + Add filter, choose Query, then Custom (regex), keep Matches regex (or choose Doesn't match regex if the bucket uses it), paste it into the box and click Apply. Search Console runs it on its full data, minus anonymised queries, and shows every search the pattern matches, including ones this page gave to an earlier bucket. You can have one Query filter at a time, and the regex box takes up to 4,096 characters (checked 21 October 2026).

The demo

The demo is an invented export for Anytown Plumbing (example.co.uk), a fictional plumbing and heating firm in Medway, Kent: 180 searches, 134 clicks and 15,825 impressions over 28 days, against a report total of 152 clicks and 19,400 impressions. Every row is made up to show how the sorter works, and nothing comes from a real Search Console property. The "Worked example" set is the eight buckets we would use to read a site like it. You can also download the example export as a zip and load it the way you would load your own.

Your data

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