A branded query is a search that includes your company, product or sub-brand name, including misspellings: the searcher already knows you and is navigating to you. In Search Console, branded queries are isolated with a regex query filter listing every spelling of your brand terms.
Why Branded Query matters for SEO
Branded traffic measures reputation and demand you earned elsewhere: marketing, PR, word of mouth. Left blended with the rest, it can grow a total for a year while acquisition stands still, hiding a stalled SEO program inside a healthy-looking chart. Branded CTR dropping is its own alarm: something is intercepting demand that was already yours.
Pro tip on Branded Query
List every spelling of your brand from the real query report, join the terms with pipes into one regex, and use it both ways: matches for the branded view, doesn't match for the non-branded view. Revisit the pattern quarterly as products and misspellings accumulate.
Branded Query vs Non-Branded Query
A branded query names you; the searcher decided to visit before typing, and SEO's only job is not fumbling the handoff. A non-branded query names the problem; the searcher is still choosing, and winning them is what content and rankings are for. The two measure different work by different teams.
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CrawlRaven tracks the branded split from brand terms you configure once, so branded and non-branded performance stay separate lines instead of a rebuilt filter.
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