As an SEO specialist, you know that Google Search Console (GSC) is the single source of truth for your site’s performance. But are you using it to its full potential in the age of AI? With AI-assisted content, it’s more important than ever to be able to isolate, track, and analyze its performance.
In my experience, many SEOs aren’t aware of the simple GSC features that can help with this. This guide is a practical, step-by-step GSC tutorial on how I set up Search Console to track the performance of my AI-assisted content. This is a key tactic within the measurement framework I laid out in my main guide, How Do You Measure the ROI of Your AI-Driven SEO Efforts?.
Why Do You Need a Separate Way to Track AI Content?
Before we get into the “how,” let’s cover the “why.” You need to track AI content in search console separately because:
- It allows for clear A/B testing: You can directly compare the performance of your AI-assisted content against your purely human-written content.
- It helps you measure ROI: By isolating the traffic and clicks from your AI-powered articles, you can more accurately calculate the ROI of your workflow.
- It helps you spot issues faster: If you see a performance drop, you can quickly determine if it’s impacting your entire site or just your AI-assisted content.
My 3-Step Process to Track AI Content in GSC
This is a simple but powerful method that relies on a smart URL structure. It doesn’t require any complex setup.
Step 1: Create a Dedicated URL Subfolder
This is the most important step. When you publish AI-assisted content, do so under a specific subfolder. For example, instead of yoursite.com/blog/my-new-post, you would use yoursite.com/ai/my-new-post.
This simple change allows you to easily filter all of your AI-assisted content within GSC.
Step 2: Use the “Page” Filter in the Performance Report
Once your content has been live for a while and is gathering data, you can create a filtered view.
- Your Action:
- Go to the Performance > Search results report in Google Search Console.
- Click the + New button at the top to add a filter.
- Select “Page…”
- In the dropdown, choose “URLs containing”.
- In the text box, type your subfolder: /ai/
GSC will now only show you the performance data (clicks, impressions, CTR, average position) for the pages within that subfolder.
Step 3: Analyze and Compare
With this filter in place, you now have a dedicated dashboard for monitoring seo performance of your AI content. You can:
- Track Growth Over Time: Use the “Date” filter to see if the clicks and impressions for your AI content are trending up.
- Find Top Performing Queries: See which search terms are driving the most traffic to your AI-assisted articles.
- Compare to Your Overall Site: You can use the “Compare” tab to compare the performance of your /ai/ subfolder against your site’s overall performance.
My Final Thoughts
Using GSC for AI content tracking is a simple, free, and incredibly powerful way to get clear, data-driven insights into your strategy. By implementing a dedicated URL structure from the start, you can easily isolate and analyze your AI-assisted content, allowing you to make smarter decisions, prove your ROI, and confidently scale your workflow.
About Me
I’m Sanwal Zia, a certified SEO strategist and the founder of Optimize with Sanwal. With expertise recognized by prestigious organizations, I focus on building effective search strategies that drive growth. You can connect with me on YouTube, my Website, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
