If you’ve noticed a sudden drop in Google Search Console impressions around mid-September 2025: sometimes 30-50% or more: don’t panic. Your SEO isn’t broken, and your rankings haven’t tanked. You’re experiencing a widespread reporting change that affected the majority of websites, not an actual decline in performance.
What Actually Happened
Around September 10-12, 2025, Google quietly removed a technical parameter called “&num=100” from search results. This parameter previously allowed automated tools, bots, and scrapers to pull 100 search results per page instead of the standard 10 that real users see.Here’s the key insight: When these bots accessed extended search results, they generated “ghost impressions” for websites ranking in positions 20, 50, or even 100: positions where actual humans rarely venture. Your impression counts were inflated by automated traffic that never had any real potential to convert into clicks or customers.
The Real Impact on Your Business
The good news is straightforward: if your actual website traffic and clicks remained stable while impressions dropped, you’re simply seeing cleaner data. Check your Google Analytics alongside Search Console. If visitor numbers held steady, your organic visibility to real customers hasn’t declined at all.You might even notice your average position improved during this period. That’s not a ranking boost: it’s just math. Previously, your average position calculation included keywords where you ranked at position 45 or 80, which only showed up in bot-generated results. Now that those artificial impressions are gone, your position averages only reflect rankings where real searchers actually see your listings.
When to Actually Worry
This September change was a reporting cleanup, not a performance problem. However, you should investigate further if you’re seeing declining clicks alongside dropping impressions, or if your Google Analytics shows actual traffic decreases.Legitimate SEO issues that cause impression drops include indexing problems, ranking position declines, increased competition for featured snippets, or seasonal demand shifts. The key difference: real SEO problems affect both impressions AND clicks together.
Moving Forward
Your Search Console data is now more accurate and actionable than before. The impressions you see represent genuine opportunities where real searchers could click your listings, not inflated numbers from automated tools.Google has confirmed this was an intentional change to clean up unsupported URL parameters. While the drop might look alarming at first glance, it’s actually giving you a more honest picture of your organic performance and real customer visibility.We’re monitoring this change across all client accounts to ensure any performance issues are quickly identified and addressed. If you’re seeing concerning patterns beyond the September impression drop,
contact our team for a deeper analysis of your organic performance.The bottom line: If your clicks and traffic stayed steady while impressions dropped in September, your SEO strategy is working exactly as it should.For more detailed information, check out this article from Search Engine Land:
https://searchengineland.com/google-search-rank-and-position-tracking-is-a-mess-right-now-461984
