Every website owner has stared at Google Search Console and seen a wall of search queries. Most of them scroll past the most valuable ones: the questions. When someone types a question into Google, they are not browsing — they want a specific answer. If your site already appears for that question, you are one good article away from winning the click.

The problem is that the default Performance report mixes questions in with everything else — brand searches, navigational queries, random keywords. A single regex filter separates them out in seconds, and the trick has been doing the rounds among SEOs this week for good reason: it turns your own search data into an endless list of article ideas.

Open Search Console, pick your property, and go to Performance, then Search results. Click Add filter (or + New), choose Query, and in the dropdown select Custom (regex). Leave it on Matches regex, paste the pattern below, and click Apply.

The shortcut that made this trick go viral is asking an AI chatbot to write the pattern for you — something like "create a regex that filters Search Console queries to only questions." It works, but you do not need to ask: here is a solid pattern you can paste straight in:

The caret at the start means the query must begin with what follows. Inside the brackets is a list of question words, separated by the vertical bar, which means "or." So the filter keeps any query that starts with who, what, when, where, why, how, and so on.

The little \b at the end is the part most people skip, and it matters more than it looks. It marks a word boundary, so "what" matches but "whatsapp" does not, and "is" matches but "issue" does not. Without it, your question list fills up with junk. Search Console uses RE2 regex syntax and ignores upper and lower case by default, so "How" and "how" are treated the same.

Once the filter is on, sort by impressions. The most useful rows are the ones with high impressions and low clicks: Google is showing your site for that question, but searchers are not choosing you. That usually means your page does not answer the question clearly enough, or your title does not promise the answer.

Each of those rows is a content job. If the question is close to something you already cover, add a clear answer near the top of that page, or add it to an FAQ section. If it is a question you have never addressed, it is a ready-made article title — one you already know has real demand, because the impressions prove people are searching for it.

Pay special attention to questions where your average position sits between 8 and 20. Those are near-misses: a stronger title, a direct answer in the first paragraph, or a fresher update is often enough to move them onto page one.

First, Search Console hides very rare queries to protect searcher privacy, so what you see is a strong sample, not every single search. Second, the data runs two to four days behind, so do not expect yesterday's searches to show up. Set the date range to the last few months so seasonal questions get a chance to appear, and remember the filter shows queries, not pages — click any query, then switch to the Pages tab, to see which of your URLs Google is actually showing for it.

Run this filter once a week and you will never stare at a blank content calendar again. Your audience is already telling you what it wants to know; this trick just lets you hear it.