Contents
- Brand traffic comes from people who already know you: it measures awareness, not SEO.
- It shows a far better CTR and position, which pulls every average up.
- No SEO review makes sense without this split done first.
Definition
The branded vs non-branded split separates queries containing the company name from all others.
Formula
Brand share = clicks on brand queries divided by total clicks.
Worked example
A site shows 4,200 organic clicks and an average CTR of 9.1%. After the split: 1,900 brand clicks at 32% CTR, and 2,300 non-brand clicks at 3.4%. The figure to comment on in an SEO review is 3.4%, not 9.1%.
Orders of magnitude
A brand share above 60% signals SEO that doesn't win new ground: the site captures its own awareness and little new demand.
The most common mistakes
- Presenting an average CTR or position across all types. It's the most common mistake of automated SEO reports.
- Forgetting misspellings of the brand name. They sometimes make up a notable share of brand traffic.
- Attributing a rise in brand traffic to SEO. It almost always comes from elsewhere: advertising, press, word of mouth.
Where to find the metric
In Search Console, the Performance report with a query filter containing or not containing the brand name. Both filters are created once then reused.
Frequently asked questions
The Adwise team connects Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, GA4 and Search Console so agencies and freelancers can run their campaigns from a single place.