High-intent queries that rank but do not get the click

People who search with words like vs, alternative, pricing, cost, review or best are close to buying. When a site already ranks for those searches and still gets almost no clicks, the usual cause is that the page in the results does not show what the searcher typed: no price, no comparison, no reviews. That is often the cheapest traffic gain on the site, because the ranking is already there.

Your job is to find these rows, keep only the ones a page change can fix, and say exactly what that page is missing. Do not turn every match into a "rewrite the page" task.

The filter

\b(vs|versus|alternative|alternatives|competitor|competitors|compare|comparison|pricing|price|prices|cost|costs|review|reviews|best)\b

In the Search Console UI it goes under Performance, Search results, then Add filter, Query, Custom (regex). Paste it without surrounding quotes. Search Console uses RE2, which supports \b. Add words for the site's market when they mean the same thing, such as cheap|cheapest|affordable|quote|rates|top for local services.

Finding it

1. Call list_gsc_sites and confirm the property.
2. Call gsc_search_analytics with dimensions: ["query","page"], a 90-day range ending about two days ago (the newest days are incomplete), and a high rowLimit. You need the page dimension because the fix happens on the page, not on the query.
3. Apply the regex to the query string, case-insensitive. The tool returns all rows, so filter them yourself. On a large property the result can be too large to read inline. Write it to a file and filter it with jq or a short script.
4. Also total all impressions, so you can report what share of the site's search visibility is high-intent. A low share is a finding in itself.

gsc_ctr_gaps returns high-impression, low-CTR queries with no intent filter. Use it to cross-check, but it cannot replace step 3.

Keeping only the rows a page change can fix

Keep a row only if all of these hold:

• Average position is about 15 or better. On page 1 and the top of page 2, the snippet decides the click. Past that, almost nobody sees the result, so a low CTR is a ranking problem. Report those rows separately as "needs to rank first". Do not prescribe a snippet fix for them.
• Impressions are high enough to judge. Below about 20 impressions in 90 days, the CTR says very little. Report these rows grouped together, not one by one.
• CTR is clearly under what that position usually gets. Position 1 usually gets well above 20%, positions 3 to 5 get several percent, and positions 8 to 10 get 1 to 3%. These are rough industry ranges. Present a gap as "well below typical", not as a precise benchmark.

Then group the remaining rows by page. Several high-intent queries landing on one page need one fix, not several.

What each intent word asks for

Look at the live page first: its title, its meta description, and what shows in the first screen. Then compare it with what the query asks for.

"Near the top" means the first screen. A section at the bottom of a long page does not change what the searcher sees when they decide to click.

Rules that stop the fix from doing harm

• Never invent reviews, ratings, prices or competitor claims. If the page has no real reviews, the recommendation is "collect reviews". It is never "add a reviews section" filled with placeholder text. Fake testimonials are a legal risk (consumer-protection law), not only an SEO risk.
• Do not add AggregateRating markup for a business's reviews of itself. Google's structured-data rules treat self-serving review markup on a LocalBusiness or Organization as a violation. A visible rating that links to the source is the honest version.
• Comparison claims about a named competitor must come from that competitor's own public material. Cite it, date it, and include the points where they win. A comparison that only says nice things about the publisher gets ignored by readers and by AI answer engines.
• Prices must come from the site's own source of truth. Do not type prices into new copy when the site already stores them somewhere else. Two pages that quote different numbers to the same buyer do more damage than a missing price.

Limits of the data

• Search Console hides rare queries for privacy. Many low-volume high-intent searches never show up as rows, so the true high-intent share is larger than the filter shows.
• Average position is an average. A query at an average of 9 may sit at 3 in one country and 40 in another. Break it down by country or device before you call a row a CTR problem.
• The filter matches words, not intent. "best practices for X" matches best but is informational. "vs code" matches vs. Read each row before you count it.

Reporting

For each page, give the queries, the numbers, the missing piece, and the fix:

/pricing ranks 6.2 on average for "acme analytics pricing" (140 impressions, 1 click) and 8.9 for "acme vs northwind" (60 impressions, 0 clicks). The page shows prices only after two screens and has no comparison section. Fix: move the price table above the fold, put "Pricing" in the title, and add a short comparison with Northwind taken from Northwind's own pricing page.

After that, list the rows that need to rank first, and the share of total impressions that is high-intent. End with how to measure the result: the same filter, the same pages, CTR 28 days after the change ships. Compare positions too, because a CTR change during a ranking change cannot be credited to the snippet.