Did your Google Search Console Impressions drop in September 2025?

If you’re like me and you keep track of Google Console for yourself, and/or for clients, you’ve probably noticed something that made you gasp out loud this last month.

Google Console Impression metrics for many, MANY sites dropped sharply, around mid-month. You’ll probably ALSO have noticed that there wasn’t a matching drop in clicks, and in fact, your “average position” looks better in your most recent metrics.

If this is what your account is looking like – don’t panic! Firstly, as long as your click throughs are still looking fabulous, what REALLY matters (engagements) is still stable, and what we’re really looking at is a change in VANITY metrics. Which we should always take with a pinch of salt anyway. Impressions are great, but clicks are far more powerful.

Why the drop?

The reason this has happened is simple, and it’s nothing you’ve done wrong, or even had any control over. Google (very quietly) removed the search parameter to view 100 results at a time, which is actually a win.

This search parameter was largely used by bots and scraping tools – and now… it exists no more. What does that mean? Well, it’s a bit of a problem for tools that help you get an idea of your existing SEO, and from the looks of things, most of them are working to adapt and adjust to the new parameters – however, if you’re here on my blog, it’s unlikely that’s your industry. So for you, that drop in impressions is actually just the metrics for your search appearances normalising for HUMAN traffic. As in, previously… those impressions? They were inflated, babe. The data you’re seeing now in your console is far more accurate to real views, and that’s what we WANT in our reporting tools!

What to tell your clients (or yourself)

If you’re still mentally freaking out a little bit, rest assured, this drop is not a problem, it’s a win for accurate tracking, and it’s also a win for the more valuable SEO metrics, like average position.

Plus, it’s a great reminder that we want to focus on user engagement, over the Google Console version of “views”. Moving forward, you’ll have a much more accurate view of your REAL performance, which is invaluable!

Should you change anything?

Short answer? Nope. This is one of those Google reporting shifts that we all have to weather as changes and improvements are constantly made to their tools, and there’s really nothing actionable at your end to take care of in response.

Just keep doing the badass things you do, and watch your web traffic grow!