Brand Query Management in Search Results
Where Brand Clicks Actually Go
Previously, a brand query almost always led to the company's website. Now, the click path branches into four scenarios, and the share of direct traffic in reports is systematically inflated — the distortion reaches 22,4% on average and up to 29,3% in certain months, because analytical systems are unable to correctly attribute transitions from AI Overviews.
| Channel | What happens | What does this mean for business |
|---|---|---|
| Organic Click | The user reaches the blue link and visits the site | Classic traffic, but its share is declining for informational and comparative queries |
| AI Overview | The answer is formed directly in the search results, and there may not even be a click | Appears in 85–95% of question-form and comparative queries; organic CTR drops by 34–61% |
| Knowledge Panel / KP Card | The user receives facts about the brand without visiting the site | Influences brand perception but does not provide traffic directly |
| Direct Visit | Analytics incorrectly records a transition from AIO as a direct visit | Reports overstate the share of Direct and mask the actual contribution of AI search |
The key figure here is this: if a brand is cited within AI Overview, the CTR for that query turns out to be 120% higher than when there are no mentions at all. That means the goal is not to fight for a click per se, but to fight for a mention within the answer, even if no physical transition to the site occurs.
GEO instead of pure SEO: why mentions matter more than links
Here lies the main split between what is usually written about brand queries and what actually works. Most materials consider the SERP as an isolated platform: if you win in organic search, the task is solved. But AI systems form a response not from the position in the search results, but from the corpus of brand mentions on the internet. The correlation between web mentions of the brand and visibility in AI Overview is 0,664, which is approximately three times higher than the correlation with backlinks (0,218). It should be noted, however: this is a correlation, not causation — the Ahrefs study emphasizes that both variables can be proxies for brand authority. In simple terms, publishing in industry media today works better for visibility in AI responses than a link from the same source.
From this practical conclusion: part of the SEO budget should flow into PR and mention management — guest articles, expert comments, presence in industry databases and review aggregators. This is not a replacement for SEO, but a parallel GEO contour, without which a brand will not physically appear in a generative response, even if it has a technically perfect website.
Google and Yandex: Different machines, different tactics
Equating brand management in Google and Yandex is the second common mistake. Search engines have different architectures for generative responses and different logics for brand identification.
| Parameter | Yandex | |
|---|---|---|
| Source of the AI response | AI Overview based on Knowledge Graph and index | YandexGPT, with a more pronounced focus on direct site content rather than external knowledge graph |
| Brand identification | Through Entity in Knowledge Graph, including typos and variations of the name | Less ready-made entity structures, higher dependence on microdata and internal relevance of the site |
| What is more important for visibility | Web mentions, PR, brand consistency in the knowledge graph | Direct work with content, structured data, e-commerce feeds |
| Risk for branded traffic | High — AI Overview actively intercepts clicks | Currently lower, but growing as generative answers expand |
The strategy of 'making the same set of measures for both systems' does not work. For Google, the priority is mentions and entity consistency, for Yandex — technical saturation of the site itself and correct microdata.
Black box Search Console: what the Branded Queries filter hides
In November 2025 Google began a phased implementation of the native Branded Queries filter in Search Console (the first implementation occurred 20 November 2025). At first glance, this is a convenience: the system itself, based on Knowledge Graph, determines queries as branded — including typos and variations of the name — and separates them from the rest. In practice, this is a black box: the classification algorithm is not disclosed, and some queries that the business considered branded (for example, «brand + model», «brand + reviews») may or may not fall into the filter without explanation of the logic.
What to do in practice:
- Do not rely on the filter as the only source of truth — maintain your own list of branded masks and typos in parallel, checking it manually;
- Compare the filter data with the logs of actual search traffic (via server logs or third-party SERP trackers) to detect discrepancies;
- Keep in mind the attribution distortion: if Direct traffic surged sharply without an obvious reason, the likely cause is unaccounted clicks from AI Overview, not organic growth.
Why one site does not protect the brand: the infrastructure of satellites and redirects
Brand display control is not only about the content of the official website. As soon as a query becomes commercially attractive, partners, aggregators, and direct competitors enter the search results, capturing clicks through similar domains. One site cannot cover all variations of brand spelling, typos, and localization — for this, infrastructure is needed.
A telling case from iGaming: there, eCPA for branded demand was reduced from $60 to $6 (by 90%) according to the iGaming brand case study of BoostWin, thanks to a combination of several elements:
- Product-first approach — the official website is always prioritized over satellites in SEO promotion;
- A pool of 200 high-quality EMD domains (exact match domain) plus a reserve of 300+ domains for replacement;
- Drop strategy — outdated or blocked domains are removed from circulation through 301-redirects to current ones;
- Daily monitoring of search results with classification of outcomes into official, partner, and competitive.
Without such a system, a competitor who outbids your brand in contextual advertising will receive someone else's traffic for months. And this is not only a marketing issue: according to Plenum Decision of the Supreme Court of Russia No. 10 dated 23.04.2019, the display of an advertisement by a competitor for someone else's brand query can be recognized as unfair competition — a fine from 100 to 500 thousand rubles, and compensation through the courts can reach up to 5 million rubles.
What to monitor in 2025 year and the new Knowledge Panel Cards format
Since traffic attribution is distorted and a portion of clicks dissolves in AI responses, metrics need to be rebuilt. A truly functioning set of indicators looks like this:
- The share of brand mentions in AI Overview and AI chats for key category queries — not a position in the search results, but a fact of citation;
- The ratio of official / partner / competitor in the top 10 for brand masks, including typos;
- The dynamics of web mentions of the brand in external sources — a leading indicator of AI visibility;
- Corrected CTR with adjustment for distorted attribution of Direct traffic;
- The number and status of EMD domains of competitors and partners claiming brand traffic.
Separately, in 2025 a new format emerged — corporate Knowledge Panel Cards. This is not a classical entity card, but an extended block that Google begins to show companies when at least two of four conditions are met: a stable entity home (a single recognizable source site, not a set of fragmented domains), consistent visual style across all sources — from social networks to industry catalogs, active and synchronized social profiles, and a regular flow of news mentions in independent media. The difference from a regular Knowledge Panel is that the card does not merely record facts about the company (address, industry, date of foundation), but actually functions as a trust showcase — which is exactly why it cannot be 'configured' with just one technically correct website. Synchronized brand work is needed across multiple points of presence at once, and without this synchronization Google will simply not compile the card, even if the brand has an ideal
Where Brand Clicks Actually Go
Previously, a brand query almost always led to the company's website. Now, the click path branches into four scenarios, and the share of direct traffic in reports is systematically inflated — the distortion reaches 22,4% on average and up to 29,3% in certain months, because analytical systems are unable to correctly attribute transitions from AI Overviews.
| Channel | What happens | What does this mean for business |
|---|---|---|
| Organic Click | The user reaches the blue link and visits the site | Classic traffic, but its share is declining for informational and comparative queries |
| AI Overview | The answer is formed directly in the search results, and there may not even be a click | Appears in 85–95% of question-form and comparative queries; organic CTR drops by 34–61% |
| Knowledge Panel / KP Card | The user receives facts about the brand without visiting the site | Influences brand perception but does not provide traffic directly |
| Direct Visit | Analytics incorrectly records a transition from AIO as a direct visit | Reports overstate the share of Direct and mask the actual contribution of AI search |
The key figure here is this: if a brand is cited within AI Overview, the CTR for that query turns out to be 120% higher than when there are no mentions at all. That means the goal is not to fight for a click per se, but to fight for a mention within the answer, even if no physical transition to the site occurs.
GEO instead of pure SEO: why mentions matter more than links
Here lies the main split between what is usually written about brand queries and what actually works. Most materials consider the SERP as an isolated platform: if you win in organic search, the task is solved. But AI systems form a response not from the position in the search results, but from the corpus of brand mentions on the internet. The correlation between web mentions of the brand and visibility in AI Overview is 0,664, which is approximately three times higher than the correlation with backlinks (0,218). It should be noted, however: this is a correlation, not causation — the Ahrefs study emphasizes that both variables can be proxies for brand authority. In simple terms, publishing in industry media today works better for visibility in AI responses than a link from the same source.
From this practical conclusion: part of the SEO budget should flow into PR and mention management — guest articles, expert comments, presence in industry databases and review aggregators. This is not a replacement for SEO, but a parallel GEO contour, without which a brand will not physically appear in a generative response, even if it has a technically perfect website.
Google and Yandex: Different machines, different tactics
Equating brand management in Google and Yandex is the second common mistake. Search engines have different architectures for generative responses and different logics for brand identification.
| Parameter | Yandex | |
|---|---|---|
| Source of the AI response | AI Overview based on Knowledge Graph and index | YandexGPT, with a more pronounced focus on direct site content rather than external knowledge graph |
| Brand identification | Through Entity in Knowledge Graph, including typos and variations of the name | Less ready-made entity structures, higher dependence on microdata and internal relevance of the site |
| What is more important for visibility | Web mentions, PR, brand consistency in the knowledge graph | Direct work with content, structured data, e-commerce feeds |
| Risk for branded traffic | High — AI Overview actively intercepts clicks | Currently lower, but growing as generative answers expand |
The strategy of 'making the same set of measures for both systems' does not work. For Google, the priority is mentions and entity consistency, for Yandex — technical saturation of the site itself and correct microdata.
Black box Search Console: what the Branded Queries filter hides
In November 2025 Google began a phased implementation of the native Branded Queries filter in Search Console (the first implementation occurred 20 November 2025). At first glance, this is a convenience: the system itself, based on Knowledge Graph, determines queries as branded — including typos and variations of the name — and separates them from the rest. In practice, this is a black box: the classification algorithm is not disclosed, and some queries that the business considered branded (for example, «brand + model», «brand + reviews») may or may not fall into the filter without explanation of the logic.
What to do in practice:
- Do not rely on the filter as the only source of truth — maintain your own list of branded masks and typos in parallel, checking it manually;
- Compare the filter data with the logs of actual search traffic (via server logs or third-party SERP trackers) to detect discrepancies;
- Keep in mind the attribution distortion: if Direct traffic surged sharply without an obvious reason, the likely cause is unaccounted clicks from AI Overview, not organic growth.
Why one site does not protect the brand: the infrastructure of satellites and redirects
Brand display control is not only about the content of the official website. As soon as a query becomes commercially attractive, partners, aggregators, and direct competitors enter the search results, capturing clicks through similar domains. One site cannot cover all variations of brand spelling, typos, and localization — for this, infrastructure is needed.
A telling case from iGaming: there, eCPA for branded demand was reduced from $60 to $6 (by 90%) according to the iGaming brand case study of BoostWin, thanks to a combination of several elements:
- Product-first approach — the official website is always prioritized over satellites in SEO promotion;
- A pool of 200 high-quality EMD domains (exact match domain) plus a reserve of 300+ domains for replacement;
- Drop strategy — outdated or blocked domains are removed from circulation through 301-redirects to current ones;
- Daily monitoring of search results with classification of outcomes into official, partner, and competitive.
Without such a system, a competitor who outbids your brand in contextual advertising will receive someone else's traffic for months. And this is not only a marketing issue: according to Plenum Decision of the Supreme Court of Russia No. 10 dated 23.04.2019, the display of an advertisement by a competitor for someone else's brand query can be recognized as unfair competition — a fine from 100 to 500 thousand rubles, and compensation through the courts can reach up to 5 million rubles.
What to monitor in 2025 year and the new Knowledge Panel Cards format
Since traffic attribution is distorted and a portion of clicks dissolves in AI responses, metrics need to be rebuilt. A truly functioning set of indicators looks like this:
- The share of brand mentions in AI Overview and AI chats for key category queries — not a position in the search results, but a fact of citation;
- The ratio of official / partner / competitor in the top 10 for brand masks, including typos;
- The dynamics of web mentions of the brand in external sources — a leading indicator of AI visibility;
- Corrected CTR with adjustment for distorted attribution of Direct traffic;
- The number and status of EMD domains of competitors and partners claiming brand traffic.
Separately, in 2025 a new format emerged — corporate Knowledge Panel Cards. This is not a classical entity card, but an extended block that Google begins to show companies when at least two of four conditions are met: a stable entity home (a single recognizable source site, not a set of fragmented domains), consistent visual style across all sources — from social networks to industry catalogs, active and synchronized social profiles, and a regular flow of news mentions in independent media. The difference from a regular Knowledge Panel is that the card does not merely record facts about the company (address, industry, date of foundation), but actually functions as a trust showcase — which is exactly why it cannot be 'configured' with just one technically correct website. Synchronized brand work is needed across multiple points of presence at once, and without this synchronization Google will simply not compile the card, even if the brand has an ideal
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