Plot Your GA4 Google Organic Search Queries CTR Curve by Position

How to export Google organic search queries from GA4

When you link Google Search Console to Google Analytics 4 and publish the Search Console collection in Reports > Library, GA4 adds two Search Console reports (Google Organic Search Queries and Google Organic Search Traffic).

1. Open Google Analytics 4 and go to Reports > Search Console > Queries (or open the Google Organic Search Queries card under Reports > Acquisition > Acquisition overview).
2. Set your date range to the last 28 or 90 days (avoid mixing pre- and post-title-change periods) and click Share this report > Download File > Download CSV.
3. You can also drop the Queries.csv file downloaded directly from Google Search Console > Performance > Search results > Export; the column names differ, as the table below shows.

Formulas to find title-tag and snippet quick wins

1. Rounded Position Bucket Expected CTR (FIXED LOD)

Instead of comparing your site against generic industry CTR studies that vary wildly by SERP features, compute your own site's weighted average CTR for each rounded ranking position (1, 2, 3, ..., 10) using a FIXED Level of Detail expression.

xmetric / Tableau formula ([Position Bucket]):

ROUND([Organic Google Search average position], 0)

xmetric / Tableau formula ([Expected Position CTR]):

{ FIXED [Position Bucket] :
  SUM([Organic Google Search clicks]) / NULLIF(SUM([Organic Google Search impressions]), 0)
}

2. Potential Extra Clicks from Rewriting Title & Meta Description

For example (sample numbers), if a query ranks at position 3.2 with 15,000 impressions and a 1.8% CTR, while your sitewide average CTR at position 3 is 6.5%, multiplying the CTR gap by impressions estimates the click upside from improving the title tag.

xmetric / Tableau formula ([Potential Extra Clicks]):

IF [Organic Google Search click-through rate] < [Expected Position CTR]
THEN [Organic Google Search impressions] * ([Expected Position CTR] - [Organic Google Search click-through rate])
ELSE 0
END

SQL equivalent:

WITH bucketed AS (
  SELECT
    "Google organic search query" AS query,
    "Organic Google Search clicks" AS clicks,
    "Organic Google Search impressions" AS impressions,
    "Organic Google Search click-through rate" AS ctr,
    "Organic Google Search average position" AS avg_position,
    ROUND("Organic Google Search average position", 0) AS position_bucket
  FROM ga4_search_queries
  WHERE "Organic Google Search average position" <= 15
),
benchmarks AS (
  SELECT
    *,
    SUM(clicks) OVER (PARTITION BY position_bucket) * 1.0
      / NULLIF(SUM(impressions) OVER (PARTITION BY position_bucket), 0) AS expected_bucket_ctr
  FROM bucketed
)
SELECT
  query,
  ROUND(avg_position, 1) AS pos,
  impressions,
  clicks,
  ROUND(ctr * 100, 2) AS actual_ctr_pct,
  ROUND(expected_bucket_ctr * 100, 2) AS benchmark_ctr_pct,
  ROUND(impressions * GREATEST(expected_bucket_ctr - ctr, 0), 0) AS potential_extra_clicks
FROM benchmarks
WHERE impressions >= 500
  AND ctr < expected_bucket_ctr
ORDER BY potential_extra_clicks DESC;

3. Position 8-15 "Striking Distance" Filter

Queries ranking between position 8.0 and 15.0 straddle the bottom of page 1 and top of page 2. Moving a high-impression query from position 11 to position 6 usually yields a larger click jump than rewriting a snippet at position 11.

xmetric / Tableau filter formula:

[Organic Google Search average position] >= 8.0
AND [Organic Google Search average position] <= 15.0
AND [Organic Google Search impressions] >= 300

Limits of the GA4 Search Console integration

• No Query + Landing Page cross-tab in the GA4 UI: In the GA4 Queries report (Google Organic Search Queries), you can drill into Search Console dimensions, but not Analytics dimensions such as Landing page. If you need exact (query, page) pairs, export via the Google Search Console API or the Search Console BigQuery bulk data export and open the CSV or Parquet file in the xmetric app.
• 1,000-row limit in direct GSC UI exports: Downloading directly from the Google Search Console web UI caps at 1,000 rows, whereas the GA4 UI CSV export supports up to 100,000 rows (as of October 2026).