Can I See Which Keywords My Website Ranks For?

The free answer: the Queries tab

You do not need a paid tool for this. Google keeps the real list, and shows it to you free:

1. Open Google Search Console and pick your site. If it is not verified yet, that one-time setup comes first.
2. Click Performance in the left sidebar.
3. Click the Queries tab under the chart.

Every row is a search your site actually appeared for. This is not an estimate: it is Google's own record of your site in its results.

How to read the four columns

Each query carries four numbers, and the combinations mean more than the numbers alone:

• Impressions is how often you appeared. High impressions with low clicks means you are seen and not chosen.
• Clicks is how often you were chosen. This is the column that pays.
• CTR is clicks divided by impressions. Read it against position: 2% at position 9 is normal, 2% at position 2 is a title problem.
• Position is your average rank for that query, where 1 is the top. It is an average across every appearance, so treat it as a trend, not a fixed rank.

A worked example: a query with 4,000 impressions, 40 clicks, 1% CTR, and position 9 is healthy for where it sits. The same numbers at position 2 would mean the title is losing a click Google already offered you.

The five filters that answer real questions

The raw table is a list. The filters turn it into answers. These five cover most of what anyone actually asks:

The regex filter is the most powerful and the most fiddly, because Search Console uses RE2 syntax. The free GSC regex generator writes the pattern from a plain-English description, so brand versus non-brand or question keywords is a paste rather than a puzzle.

What the Queries tab will not show you

Free and first-party comes with four limits worth knowing:

• Some queries are hidden. Rare and privacy-sensitive searches are withheld, so the rows never add up to your click total. Normal, on every site.
• History stops at 16 months. Export on a schedule if you want to keep more.
• Position is an average. Daily movement on a single keyword is invisible inside a 28-day average.
• Your site only. Competitors' keywords need a third-party index, covered next.

Track changes, not snapshots

A keyword list read once is trivia. The value is in what moved, and Search Console has the comparison built in:

• Use compare mode. Set the date filter to compare the last 28 days against the previous period. Every query then shows two numbers, and the difference column is the real report.
• Compare year over year for seasonal sites. A gardening site down 30% from July is normal. Down 30% from last August is not.
• Export monthly if history matters to you. The 16-month window rolls forward and deleted months do not come back. A simple spreadsheet export on the first of each month keeps the record.
• Write down what you changed, with dates. When a query jumps or drops, the first question is always what happened around that date, and memory is a bad database.

When a paid rank tracker earns its fee

A tracker is not for seeing your keywords. Search Console does that free. A tracker earns its monthly fee on three jobs:

• Competitors. Seeing what anyone else ranks for requires an outside crawler and its subscription.
• Daily precision on a chosen list. Watching 50 exact terms move day by day, during a migration or a Google update.
• Alerts. Being told about a drop instead of finding it at the next monthly check.

If none of those is your job, keep the money. If competitor coverage is, our competitor analysis checklist shows what to actually do with that data once you have it.

Ask for the list instead of exporting it

With CrawlRaven's MCP server connected, an assistant reads your real query data, so the questions above stop needing filters at all. Replace the bracketed site with yours:

What are the top queries for [your site] over the last 28 days, with clicks, impressions, and position for each?

Compare the top queries for [your site] over the last 28 days with the previous period. Which queries gained, which lost, and did position move with them?

Find queries for [your site] between position 8 and 20 with real impressions, and rank them by how many clicks one position of improvement would be worth.

CrawlRaven also keeps your target keywords next to the real query data, so the plan and the reality sit in one place. The MCP documentation lists every tool and its limits.

What to actually do with the list

Three moves cover most of the value, in order:

1. Work the position 8 to 20 list monthly. Improve the page, the title, and the internal links for the highest-impression terms. This is the shortest path from data to clicks.
2. Mine the question queries for content. Questions you appear for at position 30 are articles your audience already asked for.
3. Check the brand versus non-brand split quarterly. If non-brand is not growing, your SEO is treading water no matter what the total says, and why your site is not ranking is the next page to read.