How to find pages that are almost ranking in Google Search Console

What does "almost ranking" mean?

An almost-ranking page is one that Google already shows for a search, but not high enough to win many clicks. Google has decided the page is relevant. It just ranks below the first few results. That makes it a better place to work than a page Google has never shown, because you are improving something Google already trusts a little rather than starting from nothing.

A practical rule is average position 4 to 20 for a search that has real impressions. Positions 4 to 10 are on the first page but below the top three, where most clicks go. Positions 11 to 20 are on the second page, where very few people look.

How do you find them in Search Console?

1. Open Google Search Console and choose your property, then Performance, then Search results.
2. Pick a date range of roughly the past three months (the Last 3 months preset does it). A window that long evens out busy and quiet weeks.
3. Switch on Average position (and keep Impressions, Clicks and CTR on) by clicking the metric tiles at the top.
4. Open the Pages tab to see pages, or Queries to see searches. Click the Position column header to sort.
5. Skip anything with only a handful of impressions. Look for rows with positions from 4 to 20 and a decent number of impressions for your site's size.
6. Click a page, then open the Queries tab to see which searches that page appears for.

A page can appear in more than one position, depending on the search. Always look at the page and the query together. A page at position 12 for its main search and position 5 for a side search has two different stories.

How do you find long questions with a regex filter?

Long searches are often phrased as full questions, which is also how people talk to AI assistants. They are individually small, but together they add up, and many are poorly answered. Search Console can filter for them with a regular expression.

1. In the Performance report, click + New, then Query.
2. Change the filter type from Queries containing to Custom (regex).
3. Choose Matches regex and paste the pattern below.
4. Apply it. The table now shows only searches of eight or more words.

(\S+\s+){7,}\S+

This pattern means: a word, then spaces, repeated at least seven times, then one more word. That is eight or more words. If you want a different length, change the 7. Search Console's regex matches anywhere in the query, so the pattern needs no extra anchors.

Now sort by impressions. Read down the list as questions to answer. If your site has no page that answers one of them, it is a missing page. If a page exists and ranks at 12 or 15, it needs a clearer answer near the top.

What kinds of opportunity should you look for?

To spot "losing clicks", change the date range in Search Console to compare the latest three months with the previous three. Look for pages whose clicks dropped by a good share, not by a handful.

What is the 90-day rule?

After you change a page, leave it alone for 90 days before you judge the result. Search Console reports show what happened weeks after the fact, and Google needs time to crawl the page, reassess it and settle its position. If you edit again in week three, you can no longer tell which edit did what, or whether the change did anything at all.

• Write down what you changed and the date, plus the page's clicks, impressions and position over the previous 90 days.
• Change one page for one reason where you can. Many changes at once blur the result.
• Wait 90 days, then compare the same three-month window with the one before the change.
• Compare against pages you left alone. If everything moved up, the change may not be the reason.

How do you make the change?

• Rewrite the title and description for a page that ranks but gets few clicks. Put the thing the searcher wants into the title, in their words.
• Add the answer near the top for a question-style search. One or two clear sentences, then the detail.
• Refresh the page where clicks are falling: update numbers, remove what is out of date, add what is missing.
• Write a new page only if no page of yours answers the question. Otherwise you create a second page competing with your own.

Can this be done automatically?

Search Console is free, and everything above can be done by hand. The hard parts are doing it regularly and remembering which pages are resting. Prefera's Search opportunities reads Search Console for you, compares the latest 90 days with the 90 before, and lists the pages and long questions worth a change. It keeps a changed page in a resting state for 90 days, shows when it unlocks, and offers one open change per page at a time. Connecting Search Console is free and recommended. See the plans for what is included.

Prefera also lists every search your site appears for, so you can see what you are already found for. The same questions people type into Google are often the ones they ask AI assistants. To see who is named when they do, read how to check whether ChatGPT recommends your business, or run the free scan.

A quick checklist

1. Performance, Search results, the past three months, Average position shown.
2. Sort by position and list pages between 4 and 20 with real impressions.
3. Add the regex filter for eight-word searches and list the questions.
4. Compare against the previous three months to spot losing clicks.
5. Pick a handful, make the change, record the date.
6. Leave each page alone for 90 days, then compare.