Branded vs. Non-Branded in Search Console: Close, But Not There
Updated: Jul 8
Google Search Console just rolled out a new feature for separating branded versus non-branded search clicks, though it isn't quite working correctly yet.
In the Performance tab, under the Search Query filter, you may start noticing radio buttons that let you break out Branded versus Non-Branded search queries.
For a fictitious example like Nenni Chevrolet, the concept is simple enough: "branded" would capture searches containing "Nenni Chevrolet," while "non-branded" would cover everything else, competitive dealer-geo conquest terms, model-specific searches, service-related queries, and so on.
This distinction matters quite a bit in automotive marketing. Branded traffic represents people who are already looking specifically for you or your dealership brand. Non-branded traffic is where you're competing for broader market share, on searches like "Chevrolet dealer near Cincinnati."
Here's the catch, and to be fair, the feature is brand new: no matter which radio button we select, the results consistently show a mix of both branded and non-branded queries. The segmentation isn't filtering the way you'd expect it to.
Our suggestion to the Google Search Console team would be to let dealers (and businesses generally) define what "branded" actually means for their account, potentially through a custom regex pattern.
The reasoning is simple: every dealership is different, group names, DBA names, common misspellings vary widely, and a customizable definition would make this feature genuinely useful rather than a rough first pass.
A screenshot of the feature in action is below. It currently only reflects data collected from late February 2026 onward, so hopefully Google refines this soon.
Have you come across this new functionality yet in your own account?
Great breakdown of why branded vs. non-branded splits matter, especially for automotive where “conquest” and service-related queries muddy the picture. I also appreciate the note that the new Search Console radio buttons are close but not quite there—this kind of instrumentation gap can lead to overconfident conclusions if you treat it as clean segmentation. On the “online radio” side, I’ve found that having reliable filters for broadcaster/country/tags helps me avoid the same attribution confusion when comparing audiences across sources—more like “signal quality” than just traffic volume. Here’s online radio.