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Card class: Non-Hero • Category: Keyword Performance

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At a glance

Declining Queries is a table of the search terms that lost the most organic ground this period versus the comparison period, broken down row by row. It is your early-warning list for content that is slipping in the Search results: queries shedding clicks, impressions or position before the loss shows up in headline traffic totals. Work the top rows first, they carry the largest absolute loss.

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What it tracks

The card surfaces Declining Queries, broken down by row, drawing from the Search Console Search Analytics API at the query dimension. Each row is a single search term that your site ranked for, with its current-period clicks, impressions, CTR and average position set against the prior period so the delta is explicit. A query qualifies as declining when its clicks (or impressions) have fallen materially period on period, typically because average position has worsened, a competitor has out-ranked you, seasonal demand has cooled, or a snippet change has dented CTR. Sorting by absolute click loss puts revenue-relevant declines at the top; sorting by position change isolates ranking slippage from pure demand softening. Because the data is anonymised for rare queries and the native UI caps at 1,000 rows, this card concentrates on the meaningful-volume terms where a decline is both real and worth acting on. Pair it with position-level cards to tell apart a genuine ranking drop (act now, audit the page, check for de-indexing or cannibalisation) from a seasonal dip in search demand (often nothing to fix). Frame each row around organic search presence: the question is whether you have lost visibility for a term real users are still searching, not whether a generic number moved.

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Reconciling against the source

Reconcile against Search Console, Performance, Search results, grouping by Query and using the date comparison mode to match the same two periods. Note that Search Console data is typically 2 to 3 days delayed, rare queries are anonymised (so a few low-volume declines will not appear), and the UI caps at 1,000 rows; for the complete declining set, export period-over-period query data via the Search Analytics API and diff it.

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Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Declining Queries 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.