Sequel
SEO

Find new and lost search queries

Find the new keywords the site started ranking for this month and the search queries it stopped appearing for, by comparing two periods, so you can see which new content is winning and where visibility quietly disappeared.

Install into your agent
  • What new keywords did we start ranking for?
  • Which search queries disappeared last month?
  • Did our new guide start ranking yet?

The playbook

Period-over-period totals hide churn. A site can hold steady on clicks while gaining a hundred queries and losing a hundred others, and the two lists are more useful than the total: the gains show what is working, and the losses are usually the earliest sign of a problem.

Steps

  1. Pull both windows. Two calls to google_search_console.query with dimensions: ["query", "page"] and rowLimit: 5000: the last 28 days ending 3 days ago, and the 28 days before that. For seasonal businesses use the same 28 days a year earlier and say so.

  2. Set a floor. Keep rows with at least 20 impressions in whichever window they appear (state the floor). Without one the lists are dominated by single-impression long tail that churns constantly and means nothing.

  3. Diff the query sets. New: queries in the recent window only. Lost: queries in the prior window only. Swapped: the same query in both windows but served by a different page. Sort each list by impressions.

  4. Explain the new list. Group new queries by the page that serves them. A cluster of new queries on one URL usually means a new or updated page has started ranking; name the page and the theme.

  5. Explain the lost list. Group lost queries by their former page. If one page lost many queries, check whether the page still exists and still returns 200 with your own browsing; if it does, continue with content-decay-audit for that page. If many pages each lost a few queries, that is diffuse and belongs to traffic-drop-investigation.

  6. Report. Three short tables: top new queries (query, page, impressions, position), top lost queries (query, former page, impressions it had, position it had), swapped queries (query, old page, new page). Then two or three sentences on the pattern in each.

Gotchas

  • Lost usually means "fell below the floor", not "gone". A query at 25 impressions last month and 15 this month shows as lost. Say the lists are relative to the floor.
  • Row caps bite on large sites. At 5000 rows a big site is truncated and the diff will invent losses at the tail. If either window returns exactly the cap, raise it or narrow the comparison to a section of the site with a page filter.
  • Swapped is a cannibalization signal. If the same query keeps swapping pages, continue with keyword-cannibalization-check.
  • Search Console lags 2 to 3 days. End the recent window 3 days back.

Install

Install Sequel skills into your agent

Pick your app and Sequel installs itself: a one-click link where the client supports it, that client’s own few steps where it doesn’t. The playbooks come with the server: your agent sees that this playbook exists and reads it when a question matches.

Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, VS Code, Claude Code, Codex, Grok, Muse, dots and any other MCP app

Already have an MCP client?

https://api.sequel.sh/mcp

Add it as a remote (streamable HTTP) server and sign in when prompted. Skills come with it; nothing else to install. Manual setup per client

Choose your app

  • Claude

    One click, opens in the app

  • Cursor

    One click, opens in the app

  • VS Code

    One click, opens in the app

  • ChatGPT

    Turn on developer mode, then add Sequel. About two minutes.

  • Claude Code

    Run one command, then sign in with /mcp.

  • Codex

    Run one command, then sign in.

  • Gemini CLI

    Run one command, then sign in with /mcp auth.

  • Grok

    Add Sequel as a connector and sign in.

  • Grok Bot

    Paste this to the bot. It registers Sequel and asks you to sign in.

  • Muse

    Muse writes its own connector. One message is the whole setup.

  • dots

    Add Sequel in ChatGPT; your dot picks it up with no extra step.

  • OpenCode

    Add Sequel as a remote server from the OpenCode CLI.

  • Other MCP app

    Any client that speaks remote MCP can connect with this URL.

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Check whether the site has an llms.txt, whether it follows the spec and points at the pages that matter, and if it is missing draft one from the pages Search Console shows people actually find, so AI assistants get a curated map of the site instead of guessing.

Audit redirect chains and loops

Follow every redirect on the URLs Search Console still sends traffic to, on the sitemap, and on backlinked pages, to find chains, loops, redirects to the homepage, and temporary redirects that should be permanent, so link equity and crawl budget stop leaking.

Audit referring domain quality

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Audit titles and meta descriptions

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FAQ

Frequently asked questions

What are new and lost queries in Google Search Console?
New queries are ones that earned impressions in the recent period but not in the prior period. Lost queries had impressions before but none now. New queries point to content that gained relevance; lost queries point to rankings that disappeared.
How do I find queries I used to rank for but no longer do?
Pull Search Console data for two periods with query and page dimensions. Find queries in the earlier period absent from the recent one. Check each on Google to see whether a competitor took the ranking, the intent shifted, or the page was changed.
Why does Search Console show queries disappearing even when rankings look fine?
Search Console rounds impressions below a threshold to zero. A query that dropped from position 3 to position 15 may disappear from the report even though the page still exists. Check average position for the page overall, not just the missing query.
Should I try to recover every lost query?
No. Prioritise by the volume the query had before it was lost. Queries that drove hundreds of impressions per month are worth investigating. Queries with one or two historical impressions are statistical noise.
Can an AI agent surface new and lost queries automatically?
Yes. With Search Console connected, the agent compares two periods, identifies new and lost queries, and returns each group sorted by impressions with associated pages. Sequel provides the connection and the new-and-lost-queries playbook.

Put this playbook to work

Connect a source, ask the question, and the agent follows these steps. Free to start.

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