Search Console guide

How to find new keywords you started ranking for in Search Console

Direct answer

To find new queries in Search Console, export your queries for two periods, such as the last 28 days and the 28 before, then keep the ones that appear only in the recent list. Search Console has no filter for this, so it takes a spreadsheet lookup. With Rankgaroo, an AI pulls both query lists and returns the new ones sorted by clicks.

Updated 2026-10-25

On this page

Do it by hand Ask your AI instead Worked example Limits to know Questions Related guides

You want to see which searches started showing your site this month. Search Console lists queries, but it has no "new" filter, so a query that appeared last week sits among thousands of old ones.

New queries are where early wins hide: a page picked up a topic you did not plan for, or a translated page began to appear in a new language.

Do it by hand in Search Console

In Search Console, open Performance → Search results, set the date to the last 28 days and select the Queries tab.
Click Export at the top right and download the data as a spreadsheet. Name the tab "now".
Open the date filter, choose Custom and set the 28 days before. Export again and name the tab "before".
In the spreadsheet, look up each query from "now" in "before" with VLOOKUP or XLOOKUP and keep the rows with no match.
Sort the leftovers by clicks, then by impressions.
Back in Search Console, add a filter for a promising query and open the Pages tab to see which page it reached.

The lookup works, but you repeat both exports and the spreadsheet work every time you change the date range.

Ask your AI instead

With Rankgaroo connected to Claude, ChatGPT or Cursor, paste a question like this:

Prompt

From Search Console for sc-domain:example.com, find new queries: queries with impressions in 2026-09-25 to 2026-10-22 and none in 2026-08-28 to 2026-09-24. Sort by clicks, show impressions, CTR and position, group them by language or topic, and tell me which ones are close spellings of older queries rather than new topics.

What the AI calls

gsc_search_analytics(siteUrl: "sc-domain:example.com", startDate: "2026-09-25", endDate: "2026-10-22", dimensions: ["query"], rowLimit: 1000)
The same call for 2026-08-28 to 2026-09-24. The AI keeps the queries that appear only in the first list.
gsc_search_analytics(..., dimensions: ["page"], filters: [{dimension: "query", operator: "equals", expression: "<new query>"}])
For queries worth a look. to find the landing page.

Worked example

Query	Clicks	Impressions	CTR	Position
acme zeiterfassung app (Acme time tracking app, German)	10	38	26.3%	1.3
acme invoice login	9	22	40.9%	1.1
plantilla factura freelance autonomo (freelance invoice template, Spanish)	8	120	6.7%	4.2
freelance rechnung vorlage kleinunternehmer (freelance invoice template for small businesses, German)	6	85	7.1%	3.8
invoice template for graphic designer	6	64	9.4%	5.1
how to track billable hours in google sheets	5	41	12.2%	3.2
請求書テンプレートフリーランス (freelance invoice template, Japanese)	5	130	3.8%	6.2
timesheet template with lunch break	4	310	1.3%	6.9
net 30 vs net 15 invoice terms	2	420	0.5%	7.8
freelance quote template pdf	2	380	0.5%	8.4

Example site · Search Console · 2026-09-25 to 2026-10-22. Sample data from a fictional site.

What the answer says

In the 200 queries with the biggest click change, 64 had no impressions in the earlier period, and the best of them already earn clicks: the brand query acme invoice login took 9 clicks at position 1.1, and the Spanish and German invoice template queries took 6 to 8 clicks at positions 3.8 to 4.2. The last three rows show the other pattern, many impressions at positions 7 to 8 and almost no clicks (freelance quote template pdf: 380 impressions, 2 clicks), which marks pages worth improving. Several new queries are spelling variants of older ones, and acme zeiterfassung app is the brand name in German, so not every new query is a new topic.

Limits to know

"New" here means no row in the earlier period. It does not mean nobody searched it before, and Search Console hides anonymized queries, so some real queries never show up.
Each call returns at most 1,000 rows. On a big site, a query that sat just outside the top 1,000 last period can look new this period.
The example above covers queries that earned at least one click. New queries with impressions and zero clicks need a deeper pull sorted by impressions.
Rankgaroo has no stored history and no alerts. You ask when you want the list, and the AI does the comparison.

Questions

How do I see new keywords in Search Console?

Export the Queries tab for two periods, then keep the queries that appear only in the recent export. Search Console does not mark queries as new, so the comparison happens in a spreadsheet or through an AI that reads both lists.

What counts as a new query in Search Console?

A new query is one with impressions in the recent period and none in the comparison period. It may be a topic your site just started to match, a translated page appearing in another language, or a different spelling of an older query.

Why do new queries show so few clicks?

A query that has just started to appear usually has few impressions, and low positions earn few clicks. A new query with hundreds of impressions at positions 7 to 9 and no clicks is more interesting, because a better title or section on that page could move it.

Can Rankgaroo alert me when new queries appear?

No. Rankgaroo has no scheduled reports or alerts. You ask your AI app for new queries whenever you want, and it pulls both periods at that moment.