How to find low-CTR pages in Google Search Console

Why "sort by CTR" is not enough

Google's own help suggests selecting CTR, opening the Pages tab and sorting by CTR ascending (Search Console Help). That's a start, but the top of that list is full of pages ranking on page 3 with 40 impressions. Their CTR is low because they rank low. A new title won't fix that.

What you want is pages whose CTR is low for their position, with enough impressions that the gap is worth real clicks.

Step by step

1. Open the report. Search Console > your property > Performance > Search results. Keep Search type on Web.
2. Pick the window. The date filter defaults to the last 3 months. Keep it, or use 28 days on a busy site. Avoid a window that spans a redesign or migration.
3. Turn on all four metric cards: Total clicks, Total impressions, Average CTR, Average position.
4. Remove brand searches. People searching your name click you whatever your title says, and that hides weak pages. If your property has Google's branded queries filter (rolled out from November 2025 to eligible properties), set it to Non-branded (Google). If not: + Add filter > Query > Custom (regex) > Doesn't match regex and enter your brand spellings, like northwind|north wind|nortwind (regex help).
5. Open the Pages tab under the chart.
6. Export (top right): Excel, CSV or Google Sheets.
7. Work out your own CTR curve. Round each page's position to a whole number. For each position, add up clicks and impressions across your pages and divide: that's your site's CTR at that position. The free swipe file has a calculator tab that does this when you paste the export.
8. Calculate missed clicks. For each page: impressions x your site's CTR at that position, minus actual clicks. Sort by the result, largest first.
9. Drop the pages you can't fix with a title. Anything averaging below position 10 to 15 usually needs better content or links first.
10. Check each page's queries. Click the page row in Search Console (it becomes a filter), then open Queries. If people search "lawn aeration cost" and your title says "Our Aeration Services", that's the fix.
11. Look at the real results page. Search the main query in a private window. An AI Overview, ads, a map pack or a video block can take the clicks no matter what your title says. Skip those pages for now.
12. Rewrite, log, measure. Write the new title and description, note the date, and after 28 days use Compare in Search Console: the 28 days after vs the 28 days before, filtered to that page.

Why use your own CTR curve

Published "CTR by position" studies vary a lot by industry, device and how many ads and features sit on the page, and they age fast. Your own pages, in your own market, are the fairest comparison. If your site's position-3 pages average 6% and one position-3 page gets 1.5% on 20,000 impressions, that page is missing about 900 clicks in the window. That's a page worth rewriting today.

A worked example

A fictional lawn care site, last 3 months, non-brand:

/lawn-aeration is the first rewrite. /blog/grass-types has the most impressions but ranks 18th: that's a content problem, not a title problem.

What to write

Match the words in the top queries, put one hard fact in the title (price, number, spec), and use the description to remove the main worry. The swipe file has 100 examples and patterns by page type. To check how a draft looks in results, use the SERP preview tool.