Earlier this year, Google launched a new AI Performance Report within Google Search Console, nested under the main Performance report. This new report lets site owners see impressions, pages, countries, devices, and dates but notably, it doesn’t include query data.
Recently, Anastasia Kourou posted on LinkedIn about spotting odd queries in her regular Search Console performance report things like:
- “Yes”
- “Yes, go on.”
- “Yes, pricing”
Kourou found these queries odd enough to flag, and John Mueller from Google responded with some clarification. He wrote: “Search Console includes information on AI Overviews and AI Mode in the general performance report.
There’s a bit more on this at this URL
The linked documentation explains: “If a user asks a follow-up question within AI Mode, they are essentially performing a new query. All impression, position, and click data in the new response are counted as coming from this new user query.”
Here is the screenshot.
So here’s what’s happening: when someone uses AI Mode and responds with something like “yes” to continue a conversation, Google treats that as a brand-new query and it gets logged into the regular Search Console performance report, complete with its own impressions, clicks, and position data.
Just as we’ve come to assume that unusually long, conversational-style queries in Search Console likely originated from AI Overviews or AI Mode, short follow-up responses like “yes” are now another signal pointing to the same source.
Have you spotted odd, conversational queries like these in your own Search Console reports?
