Overview &
Executive
Insights & Scenarios Reference
Metricstab automatically reads your Search Console data and surfaces
plain-English narratives, alerts and action items across the dashboard. This page is the
full reference for every insight the system can generate — what triggers it, what it
means, and what to do about it. Use it to decode anything you see on the Overview, in a
report header, or in the weekly insight feed.
How insights are organised
Every insight is tagged with a severity and a
category. Severities are colour-coded throughout the UI:
Critical
Warning
Info / Opportunity
Success / Momentum
Awaiting data
Most insights link directly to the underlying report so you
can drill from headline to evidence in one click.
1.
Performance scenarios (period over period)
Six narrative patterns derived from comparing the current window to the
previous one of equal length.
| Label |
Trigger |
What it means |
Severity |
| Authority Decay |
Impressions down >10% and avg position worsened by >5 places |
Major visibility loss on core terms. You're losing ranking authority or relevance
— not just a bad week. |
Critical |
| Snippet Failure |
Position stable/better but CTR dropped >10% |
You're ranking the same or higher, yet fewer searchers click. Competitors' snippets
are winning the SERP. |
Warning |
| Ghost Impressions |
Impressions up >50% but clicks essentially flat (<5%) |
You showed up for many more queries but few converted to visits — usually a
viral or off-intent surge. |
Warning |
| Expansion Phase |
Impression growth > 2× click growth (both positive) |
Google is widening the queries it shows you for. Visibility leads, CTR will follow
if relevance holds. |
Info |
| The Golden Trend |
Clicks up >10% and avg position improving |
The ideal pattern: ranking better and earning more clicks. Reinforce whatever you've
been doing. |
Success |
| Efficiency Win |
Click growth outpacing impression growth (both positive) |
High-intent growth — your snippets are converting better than your average
ranking would predict. |
Success |
2. Portfolio concentration
Risk scoring based on how concentrated your traffic is in a few top URLs.
| Label |
Trigger |
What it means |
Severity |
| High Dependency Risk |
Top page > 60% of total clicks |
One ranking drop on a single URL would be catastrophic. Diversify aggressively. |
Critical |
| Moderate Concentration |
Top 5 pages > 60% of total clicks |
Manageable, but worth monitoring. Build a deeper bench of ranking URLs. |
Warning |
| Healthy Diversification |
Top page < 60% & top 5 < 60% |
Traffic is well-distributed across pages. No single-point-of-failure exposure. |
Success |
| Insufficient Data |
No page-level data available |
Connect Search Console or wait for the first ingestion to complete. |
Awaiting |
3. Searcher intent mix
Recommendations driven by the commercial / informational / brand split of
your top queries.
| Label |
Trigger |
Recommendation |
| Awareness Heavy |
Informational queries > 70% |
You're attracting researchers. Add CTAs and conversion paths to monetise the top of
the funnel. |
| High Value Traffic |
Commercial queries > 40% |
You're attracting buyers. Optimise speed, forms and trust signals on landing pages.
|
| Brand Invisible |
Brand share < 5% (≥ 25 queries) |
Almost no one searches for you by name. Invest in PR, retargeting or branded
campaigns. |
4. Brand vs non-brand callouts
Narrative around the brand / non-brand composition of top queries. See the
Brand vs Non-Brand doc for the full method.
| Label |
Trigger |
What it means |
| Brand Dominant |
Brand click share ≥ 60% |
Most traffic is demand you already own. Invest in non-brand topical content to grow
new demand. |
| Brand Invisible |
Brand click share < 5% |
Brand recognition is essentially absent. Build it. |
| Healthy Mix |
Balanced split |
Both brand recall and topical reach are working. |
5. Priority
Actions
The five highest-priority tasks generated each refresh from
striking-distance,
CTR and question data. Each item carries a priority badge (HIGH / MEDIUM / LOW).
| Action type |
Title template |
Trigger |
Priority |
| Striking Distance push |
Push "{query}" to Page 1 |
Query at position 10–20 with above-median impressions |
HIGH |
| CTR optimisation |
Rewrite snippet for "{query}" |
Median+ impressions, below-average CTR |
MEDIUM |
| Content gap |
Create content for "{query}" |
Zero clicks but > 0 impressions |
LOW |
| Answer a question |
Answer "{question query}" |
Question-style query with impressions but no clicks |
LOW |
| Improve CTR on |
Improve CTR on "{query}" |
Top-impression query underperforming the CTR curve for its position |
MEDIUM |
6. Site Pulse /
overall status
A single roll-up of the worst-active scenario plus portfolio severity.
| Status |
Trigger |
Tone |
| Critical
Issues Detected |
Any active critical scenario |
Danger |
| Attention
Needed |
Worst severity is warning |
Warning |
| Expanding |
Worst severity is info (e.g. expansion phase) |
Info |
| Healthy
Growth |
No issues, only positive signals |
Success |
| Awaiting
Data |
Not enough data yet |
Awaiting |
7.
Report-specific callouts
Contextual insights that appear inside individual report pages.
- High-Priority Page 1 Opportunity — one or more queries sit just outside
page 1 with above-average impressions.
- Keywords in Striking Distance — deep pipeline message when more than 10
candidates exist.
- Snippet Refresh Opportunity — estimates extra clicks if CTR were lifted
to 5% across the flagged set.
- Unanswered Questions — question-style queries with impressions but zero
clicks; FAQ / explainer candidates.
- Inserts the active Portfolio concentration label (see section 2).
- Renders the live Intent mix percentages and the matching recommendation.
- No Significant Decay — no page below 50% of its peak.
- Pages in Severe Decay — one or more pages below 25% of peak.
- Pages Below Peak — moderate decay summary.
- Positive Momentum — more growing queries than declining, net click gain.
- More Losers Than Winners — net click loss; investigate top losers.
- New Keywords Driving Traffic — freshly discovered queries already
converting clicks.
- New Keywords With Zero Clicks — impressions but no clicks; snippet /
content opportunity.
8. Weekly
insight rules (auto-alerts)
A rule registry that runs on a schedule and emits alerts. Each row links to
the
relevant report.
Traffic & performance
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
traffic.weekly_drop |
Clicks down N% week-over-week |
Warning (Critical >40%) |
traffic.impressions_up_ctr_down |
Impressions +N% but CTR −M% week-over-week |
Warning |
traffic.growth_concentrated_few_urls |
Top 5 URLs drive N% of all clicks |
Info |
traffic.homepage_dependency |
Homepage drives N% of total clicks |
Info |
traffic.release_overlaps_drop |
Recent release coincides with N% click drop |
Warning |
traffic.search_appearance_shift |
Search appearance 'x' clicks moved ±N% |
Info |
CTR & rankings
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
ctr.opportunity_concentration |
N CTR opportunities ready to optimise |
Info |
ctr.below_expected_for_position |
N top-ranking pages have CTR below position benchmark |
Warning |
rankings.striking_distance |
N queries in striking distance of page 1 |
Info |
rankings.distribution_loss |
N pages dropped out of the top-10 |
Warning |
Content & keywords
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
content.decay_alert |
N pages showing content decay |
Warning |
content.cannibalization |
N queries with cannibalization signals |
Warning |
content.new_pages_no_traction |
N new pages have impressions but almost no clicks |
Info |
content.page_volatility |
N pages have highly volatile daily clicks |
Info |
queries.new_keywords_surge |
N new keywords detected this month |
Info |
queries.questions_block |
N question-style queries to capture |
Info |
queries.long_tail_growth |
N long-tail queries driving discovery |
Info |
Brand & intent
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
brand.share_increasing_too_much |
Brand share of clicks rose Npp week-over-week |
Warning |
brand.non_brand_declining |
Non-brand clicks down N% week-over-week |
Warning (Critical >40%) |
Performance, devices & geography
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
performance.devices_mobile_drop |
Mobile CTR is materially below desktop |
Warning |
performance.country_concentration |
Country X drove N% of this week's click drop |
Warning |
performance.psi_low_score |
N pages have a mobile performance score below 50 |
Warning |
performance.cwv_poor |
N URLs failing Core Web Vitals (field data) |
Critical |
Technical & indexing
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
technical.sitemap_errors |
Sitemap reporting N errors |
Warning (Critical ≥10) |
technical.indexing_blocked |
N URLs not indexed in Search Console |
Warning |
Page groups, query groups & rich results
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
page_groups.section_decline |
Section 'label' down N% week-on-week |
Warning |
page_groups.template_regressed |
Section 'label' average position worsened by N |
Warning |
query_groups.visibility_decline |
Query group 'label' clicks down N% week-on-week |
Warning |
rich_results.underperforming_ctr |
Rich result 'appearance' CTR is below site baseline |
Info |
Robots.txt monitoring
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
robots.blocking |
robots.txt is blocking all crawlers (Disallow: /) |
Critical |
robots.changed |
robots.txt content changed since the last snapshot |
Warning |
Pages & URL health
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
pages.top_page_position_drop |
Your top page dropped N positions week-over-week |
Warning (Critical ≥10) |
pages.unhealthy_urls |
N URLs have a URL Health Score below the critical threshold |
Warning |
Indexing & crawl
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
technical.crawled_not_indexed |
N URLs are crawled but not indexed by Google |
Warning |
technical.discovered_not_indexed |
N URLs are discovered but not yet indexed |
Info |
technical.crawl_budget_drop |
Googlebot crawl volume dropped N% this week |
Warning |
PageSpeed & Core Web Vitals
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
performance.psi_regression |
PageSpeed score dropped N points since the last run |
Warning (Critical ≥20 pt drop) |
performance.slow_popular_pages |
N high-traffic pages score below 50 on mobile PageSpeed |
Warning |
performance.revenue_weighted_psi_low |
Revenue-weighted mobile PSI score is below N |
Warning |
performance.mobile_desktop_drag |
N high-traffic pages have a large mobile vs desktop PSI gap |
Warning |
performance.worst_psi_pages |
Your N worst-scoring pages now drive X% of clicks |
Warning |
Statistical traffic signals
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
traffic.statistically_significant_downtrend |
Clicks show a statistically significant downtrend (p<0.05) |
Critical |
traffic.recent_anomaly_days |
N anomalous days detected in the latest reporting window |
Warning |
traffic.clicks_impressions_divergence |
Clicks and impressions are moving in opposite directions |
Warning |
Cross-signal opportunities
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
opportunity.striking_distance_slow |
N striking-distance queries have a slow landing page |
Info |
opportunity.ctr_cwv_intersection |
N low-CTR queries land on CWV-poor pages |
Info |
A/B testing & experiments
| Rule |
Title template |
Severity |
experiments.test_ready_to_promote |
Test 'name' reached significance with a positive result |
Success |
experiments.test_negative_result |
Test 'name' reached significance with a negative result |
Critical |
9. Dashboard narrative sections
High-level groupings used on the Overview page to organise the insights
above.
- Key Risks — "The highest-priority issues to investigate
first." Aggregates the worst-severity signals across performance, portfolio, content decay and
largest losers. Each row is rendered with an Investigate badge so you have an immediate triage queue
at the top of the dashboard. Severity tone is inherited from the underlying signal (danger,
warning, info).
- What Changed — click / impression deltas, top gainer /
top loser query and page, brand-mix shift and any release annotations in window. Each row
carries an icon + tone badge so you can scan momentum at a glance: green for gains, red for
losses, blue for neutral context (e.g. release notes), yellow for shifts that need attention.
- Where to Look Next — the Priority Actions queue
(section 5) plus secondary suggestions from striking distance, CTR and questions. Items include
a deep-link button (e.g. "Open report →") that jumps straight to the relevant report with
the right filters pre-applied. Use this card as your weekly working list.
- Largest Losing Page / Largest Losing Query — "X
lost N clicks versus the previous period."
- Top Gainer / Top Loser Queries & Pages — up to 5 each, badged success
or danger.
10. Anomalies Snapshot
Statistical alarm comparing each day in window to the rolling baseline.
See Anomalies Snapshot for the full method.
- Clicks Spike / Dip —
"N clicks vs ~M baseline" with z-score
(e.g. +2.4σ).
- Impressions Spike / Dip — same pattern for impressions.
- Spikes badge as success, dips as danger (clicks) or warning (impressions).
11. Dashboard intelligence cards
- Performance Signals — renders any active
scenarios from section 1 (Authority Decay, Snippet Failure, Ghost
Impressions, Expansion Phase, Golden Trend, Efficiency Win). Each card carries a tone badge, an
insight sentence and a recommended action. The card is empty ("No notable performance signals
detected for this period") when none of the six scenarios trigger for the active window.
- Portfolio Health — renders the portfolio label from
section 2 (High Dependency Risk, Moderate Concentration, Healthy
Diversification or Insufficient Data) plus visual bars for top-page and top-5 share. The bars
use the same severity colour as the badge so the card communicates risk at a glance.
Two structural-health alerts surface beneath the bars when present:
- Cannibalisation — the count of queries where two or more of
your URLs both rank in the top 20 (sourced from the 90-day query×page snapshot,
same data the dedicated Cannibalization report uses). Click the link to
review which queries to consolidate.
- Dormant indexed pages — pages with impressions in the last
90 days but zero clicks AND average position > 20. These are
crawl-budget candidates for refresh, merge, or prune. The count caps at 500+ to keep
the card readable on very large sites.
- Searcher Intent — commercial / informational / brand
/ other percentages plus the matching recommendation from section 3
(Awareness Heavy, High Value Traffic or Brand Invisible). Percentages are computed from the top
queries in window, classified by keyword pattern.
- Brand vs Non-Brand — queries, clicks, CTR, position and click share for
each bucket plus the callout from section 4.
- Metric tiles — Clicks, Impressions, CTR and Average Position with
period-over-period delta.
Severity reference
- Critical — Authority Decay, High Dependency
Risk, >40% click drops, CWV Poor.
- Warning — Snippet Failure, Ghost
Impressions, Mobile CTR gap, Content Decay, Cannibalization, Brand share spike, Non-brand
decline, Section decline.
- Info / Opportunity — Expansion Phase, CTR
Opportunities, Striking Distance, New Keywords, Questions, Long-tail.
- Success / Momentum — Golden Trend, Efficiency
Win, Healthy Diversification, Positive Momentum, Healthy Mix.
- Awaiting — not enough data to compute the
signal yet.