Search Console Is Showing Queries Nobody Would Type. Here Is What They Are.
Open the Queries report in Search Console and sooner or later you find something that stops you. Not a keyword. A fragment of a conversation.
Here are four real ones from this site's own Search Console, all sitting at average position 1:
- u tell me more
- yes to both pls
- chck again
- what's the review
Nobody types "yes to both pls" into Google. Those are replies. They are the second and third turns of a conversation, and they landed in a report built to show search queries.
If you have seen something similar and assumed your account was broken, or that somebody had hacked your site, it is neither. Here is what is actually happening.
The short answer: it is AI Mode
Google confirms in its own documentation that sites appearing in AI features, including AI Overviews and AI Mode, are reported in the Performance report inside the "Web" search type. There is no separate bucket. It is mixed in with everything else.
In AI Mode a person asks a question, reads the answer, then asks a follow up. Each of those turns is a query as far as the reporting is concerned. So "tell me more" arrives in your Queries report looking like a search, because structurally it was one.
Why they sit at position 1. Position in this context is where your link appeared in the AI response, not where you ranked in a list of ten blue links. A citation inside an AI answer is usually reported at or near the top. That is why these queries show a position most people would celebrate, next to a click count of zero.
The tell that it is not ordinary search
Conversational fragments are the obvious signal. The less obvious one is more useful, because it appears even when the queries look normal.
This site also picked up a cluster of queries about advertising agencies in Kansas City. Roughly twenty five of them, most at position 1 or 2. The site has never published a single word about Kansas City, and a check of the live results for "google ads agency kansas city" turns up nothing but local agencies. It does not rank there in the ordinary sense at all.
That is the pattern worth learning:
- Position 1 or 2, which for a competitive term you have never targeted is implausible
- Real impressions, often twenty to forty, so it is not a one off fluke
- Zero clicks, every time
- A topic you have no page for, or a phrase no human would type
Four together and you are looking at AI, not at search.
How to check your own account properly
Since 31 August 2026 there is a dedicated report, and Google has now rolled it out to every site worldwide. It is far better than guessing from the query list.
- Open Search Console and go to Performance, then Search Analytics, then the AI section.
- That is the Generative AI performance report. It covers both AI Overviews and AI Mode.
- It shows how your impressions from AI features are moving over time, and, more usefully, which of your pages get shown most and least, broken down by country and device.
Two things to know before you read too much into the numbers. An impression counts once per response, so if three of your pages are cited in the same answer that is one impression rather than three. And the usual one thousand row limit applies, same as every other performance report.
If you want to tie a specific odd query back to a page in the main report instead, click the query, then switch to the Pages tab with that filter still applied. It will tell you exactly which page is being cited.
What this means if you run a local business
Three practical things, and one that matters more than the other two.
1. Your impressions are not what they were
If AI impressions are folded into your totals, then a rise in impressions no longer straightforwardly means "more people are finding us in search". Some of it is your content being read out inside an answer. Judge yourself on clicks and on the queries that actually convert, not on the impression graph.
2. Zero clicks is not zero value, but it is not a customer either
Being cited in an AI answer puts your name in front of someone. Google's own line is that clicks coming from pages with AI Overviews tend to be higher quality, because people who do click have already read something about you. That is worth having. It is still not the same as somebody arriving on your site, and you should not let a healthy looking AI impression count paper over flat traffic.
3. There is no trick to optimise for it
This is the part worth sitting with, because a lot of people will try to sell you the opposite. Google states plainly that there are no additional requirements to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode, and no special optimisations necessary. No new file to upload, no AI specific markup, no schema.org tag that unlocks it.
What it asks for is the same list it has asked for all along: a site that can be crawled and indexed, content that is actually helpful, decent page experience, clear internal linking, and accurate structured data.
For a local business specifically, the things an AI answer needs in order to mention you are the same things the Map Pack needs. A profile with correct categories, a name and address and phone that match everywhere, recent reviews, and pages that answer the question a person actually asked. If you want the short version of that, our guide to ranking higher on Google Maps is the same work.
One thing you can control: where you are listed
Assistants lean heavily on places that describe businesses in a structured, consistent way. Directories, in other words. When an AI answer lists three plumbers in a town, it is usually drawing on the same handful of sources that Google draws on.
That makes citation consistency quietly more important than it was, not less. A business listed under two slightly different names in two directories is ambiguous to a ranking algorithm and ambiguous to a language model for the same reason. We keep a filterable list of the local citation sites that actually matter, sorted by country and trade, if you want somewhere to start.
Common questions
Is AI Mode traffic counted separately in Search Console?
Not in the main Performance report. Google includes it in the "Web" search type alongside everything else. There is now a separate Generative AI performance report under Performance, Search Analytics, AI, which gives you a dedicated view, but it does not remove that data from your overall totals.
Why do these queries show position 1 with no clicks?
Position reflects where your link sat in the AI response rather than a rank in a list of results. Most people read the answer and never click a citation, so a top position with no clicks is the normal shape of it rather than a sign of something broken.
Are the strange conversational queries a sign my site was hacked?
Almost certainly not, but it is worth ruling out in two minutes. Check the Pages report for URLs you do not recognise, and view your homepage source for outbound links to sites you have never heard of. A spam injection needs those links to be worth doing. If your pages are all yours and there are no foreign links, you are looking at AI reporting, not an intrusion.
Can I stop my site appearing in AI features?
You can restrict how your content is used through the usual crawler controls, including Google-Extended. Think about it carefully first. Opting out removes you from answers your competitors will still appear in, and it does nothing to improve your ordinary rankings.
Should I write content specifically for AI Mode?
Write content that answers a real question completely and in plain words, which is what you should have been doing anyway. The pages of ours that show up in AI answers are the ones that explain something properly, not the ones stuffed with keywords.
See where you stand, free
Run your business through the free Google Business Profile Grader for an instant 0-100 score, or check your map rank with the Local Rank Checker. Want a playbook for your specific trade? See our local SEO guides by industry, or start free with RankLocal and let it fix everything automatically.