Improved data filtering and comparison on Performance reports

Wednesday, April 07, 2021

The Search Console Performance reports allow users to understand how people find their site on Google. Today, we’re introducing two improvements that will make the reports more useful: regular expression (regex) filters and a revamped comparison mode.

Filters now support regular expressions

In the Performance reports, you can already use filters to slice and dice your data. Until now, users could filter queries and page URLs according to three patterns: containing a string, not containing a string, and exactly matching a string. Previously, Search Console didn't support more complex cases, such as a query containing one out of a few optional strings.

Today, we’re introducing a new way to filter your data: regular expressions, or regex. This will help you create more complex query and page based filters and answer more questions that interest them. For instance, let's say your company is called 'cats and dogs' but is sometimes also abbreviated as 'cats & dogs' or even 'c&d'. You can use a regex filter to capture all of your branded queries by defining the regex filter: cats and dogs|cats & dogs|c&d

To use the new regex filter, create a query or page filter, select the dropdown menu and select Custom. To learn more, visit the regex filters help center page.