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Card class: Non-Hero • Category: Keyword Performance

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At a glance

Branded vs Non-Branded splits your organic-search performance into queries that contain your brand name and queries that do not, shown as a share (pie) of the total. Branded demand reflects people already looking for you; non-branded demand reflects net-new discovery from generic search. The balance between the two tells SEO and marketing teams how much of their organic traffic is brand-led versus won on merit.

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What it tracks

The card pulls query-level data from the Search Console Search Analytics API (query dimension), then classifies each query as branded or non-branded by matching it against your brand terms (and common misspellings or variants), and sums clicks (or impressions) into the two buckets. The pie shows each bucket’s share of the total. A healthy ecommerce property usually wants non-branded share to grow over time, because that is the part of search you are winning through content, rankings and product visibility rather than existing brand awareness. A sudden swing toward branded share can mean non-branded rankings have slipped; a swing toward non-branded can mean a content or category page has started ranking well. Because the classification depends on your configured brand-term list, keep that list current (new sub-brands, product lines and common misspellings) for an accurate split.

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Reconciling against the source

Rebuild this in Google Search Console under Performance → Search results by adding a Query filter containing your brand name (branded), then inverting it to “Queries not containing” your brand name (non-branded), and comparing the two click totals. Note GSC data is typically 2 to 3 days delayed, anonymises rare queries (so very long-tail branded misspellings may be excluded), and the query report caps at 1,000 rows in the UI. See Branded Search Cannibalisation (GSC vs Google Ads) and Long-Tail Analysis for related context.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Branded vs Non-Branded is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Google Search Console and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.