Your website might have dozens of blog posts and hundreds of product pages. It is easy to open a search report and check clicks page by page, but answering questions such as “How is the blog performing overall?” or “Which type of product page is losing traffic?” requires you to group related pages first.
Content Groups bring pages that match the same rule into one group, so you can review their combined search performance. For example, you can place every page with /blog/ in its URL into a “Blog posts” group and monitor how those pages perform as a whole.
If the feature is new to you, think of it as a way to create reusable groups of pages and view search data from a particular business perspective.
All websites and data in this article are fictional examples. They demonstrate how grouping and calculations work, but do not represent the results of a real website or promise traffic growth.
1. What is a Content Group?
Imagine that you run a website selling running equipment, with both advice articles and product pages:
| Page path | Page content | Possible group |
|---|---|---|
/blog/running-shoes | Running shoe buying guide | Blog posts |
/blog/beginner-training | Beginner training plan | Blog posts |
/products/shoes/model-a | Model A running shoes | Running shoe products |
/products/shoes/model-b | Model B running shoes | Running shoe products |
“Blog posts” is one Content Group, while “Running shoe products” is another. Each group brings together pages that share a recognisable URL path, making their overall performance easier to review.
Creating a group does not move pages, change URLs or alter your website structure. It only provides another way to analyse the data, so your existing site structure stays as it is.
In alook, you can use URL rules to group blog posts, product categories, landing pages or pages created in bulk, then monitor the search performance of each type of content over time.
2. How is a Content Group created?
In alook, start by choosing the type of page you want to monitor, then identify the path those URLs have in common.
Step one: Decide which type of page you want to monitor
Begin with a specific question:
- Are our recently published blog posts receiving more search clicks overall?
- Are running shoe product pages or running watch product pages declining?
- Is a set of pages created from the same template receiving search traffic as a whole?
Starting with a question is more likely to produce a useful finding than creating many groups without a clear purpose.
Step two: Find the shared URL path
For example, your blog pages might be:
https://example.com/blog/running-shoes
https://example.com/blog/beginner-training
https://example.com/blog/marathon-checklist
They all contain /blog/, so you can configure the group like this:
Group name: Blog posts
URL path: /blog/
The group name is a label that helps you recognise the group. The URL path determines which pages are included.
alook currently uses simple contains matching. If a URL contains the path you enter, it is included in the group. Matching for English letters is case-insensitive. Each group accepts one path, and you do not need to write a regular expression.
For example, /blog/running-shoes matches /blog/, while /products/shoes/model-a does not. Including the trailing / also prevents a different directory such as /blogger/ from being included accidentally.
The rule must match the URLs your website actually uses. If your blog is under /articles/, enter /articles/. Bear in mind that /blog/ does not match a directory homepage ending with exactly /blog and no trailing slash.
Step three: Combine data from matching pages
Suppose the following clicks were recorded during the same 28-day period:
| Page path | Clicks |
|---|---|
/blog/running-shoes | 300 |
/blog/beginner-training | 180 |
/blog/marathon-checklist | 120 |
/products/shoes/model-a | 250 |
The total for the “Blog posts” group is:
300 + 180 + 120 = 600 clicks.
The product page's 250 clicks are not included in this group. Content Groups summarise data that already exists; grouping pages does not generate additional clicks.
3. How does this help with SEO analysis?
Understand the overall trend for a type of content
A decline on one article does not necessarily mean that the whole blog is performing worse.
Compare two consecutive 28-day periods of equal length:
| Blog page | Previous-period clicks | Current-period clicks |
|---|---|---|
| Running shoe buying guide | 250 | 300 |
| Beginner training plan | 200 | 180 |
| Marathon equipment checklist | 50 | 120 |
| Blog total | 500 | 600 |
The “Beginner training plan” fell by 10%, from 200 clicks to 180, but the blog as a whole rose by 20%, from 500 clicks to 600.
This tells you that the blog is growing overall while one article deserves a closer look. Content Groups preserve both parts of that picture, helping you avoid drawing an overly broad conclusion from a single page.
Find problems hidden by the website total
Now compare two groups of pages:
| Content Group | Previous-period clicks | Current-period clicks | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blog posts | 500 | 600 | +20% |
| Running shoe products | 500 | 400 | -20% |
| Total | 1,000 | 1,000 | 0% |
The website total has not changed, but blog traffic has risen while product-page traffic has fallen.
If your aim is to generate product enquiries or orders, it is worth prioritising the individual pages in the “Running shoe products” group. Check whether search demand has changed, rankings have declined or the page content is still accurate.
Clicks can help you locate a change, but they do not show revenue on their own. To judge which group delivers business value, you also need conversion data such as orders, enquiries or registrations.
Monitor whether a set of pages merits further investment
If you have created 100 tool pages from the same template and all their URLs contain /tools/, you can create a “Tool pages” group.
Suppose the group grows from 800 clicks in one period to 1,000 in the next, an increase of 25%. You can confirm the overall direction first, then investigate which pages account for the growth and whether it is concentrated in only a small part of the group.
This approach works for blog sections, product categories, feature landing pages and pages created through programmatic SEO, or pSEO. When a new page matches the URL rule and its data has been synced to alook, it is included in the relevant figures without requiring you to add its URL manually.
4. How are Content Groups different from Topic Clusters?
Both features group search data, but they group different things:
| Feature | What it groups by | A question it can answer |
|---|---|---|
| Topic Clusters | Matching terms within users' search queries | How has the “running shoes” topic performed recently? |
| Content Groups | Paths within page URLs | How have all blog posts performed recently? |
For example, someone might search for “best running shoes for beginners” and click /blog/running-shoes. That click may appear in both the “Running shoes” topic and the “Blog posts” content group.
These are different views of the same visit. Do not add Topic Cluster clicks to Content Group clicks and treat the result as the website's total clicks.
For more about grouping search queries, read What are Topic Clusters?.
5. How do I get started in alook?
- Open Your sites and choose the website you want to analyse.
- Find Content Groups in SEO overview, then select Add Content Groups.
- Enter a Group name, such as “Blog posts”.
- Enter a URL path, such as
/blog/. - Select Save content group. The table refreshes to show clicks for the current date range and whether the trend is rising, falling or unchanged.
If you are unsure how to categorise your pages, select Analyze and add with AI in the dialog. AI uses the structure of recently synced page URLs to generate group names and path rules, then saves them directly. Existing groups are retained, and duplicate suggestions are skipped.
You should still review AI suggestions in the context of your business. For example, it might identify a product group from a directory, but you need to decide whether that directory represents a product category you actually want to monitor.
To change a name or path rule, or to delete a group, select Edit on the relevant row in SEO overview. All Content Group management takes place there.
6. Points to remember before using Content Groups
Will creating a Content Group improve rankings?
Grouping does not change your pages or search rankings. It helps you identify which areas of content need attention, after which you can decide what to do based on the relevant page data and your business goals.
Can different Content Groups count the same pages?
Yes. For example, one group might match /products/, while another matches /products/shoes/. A running shoe product page would then be included in both groups. Do not simply add together groups that overlap. When creating them, be clear whether you want to monitor all products or one particular product category.
Why does a Content Group have no clicks?
First, check that the URL rule matches the real page path. Then confirm that search data exists for those pages within the selected date range and that syncing has completed. Content Groups do not independently discover every page on your website; they use search data that has already been synced.
alook's current group figures are based on synced search details. Google Search Console hides some search queries, and data coverage can vary between dimensions, so group clicks may not exactly equal the website's total clicks. For more information about these reporting limits, see the Google Search Console performance report documentation.
Start with an easily recognisable section such as /blog/. Review how that set of pages is changing overall, then return to the individual pages to investigate the reasons. This gives each SEO review a clearer focus.