Google confirmed recently that a logging error had been inflating impression data in Search Console since May 2025. The fix has been rolling out - which means impression counts in many accounts dropped sharply. Not because performance changed, but because the number being reported finally became accurate.
Clicks, positions, and CTR were unaffected. But impressions - and any metric derived from impressions - were artificially elevated for the better part of a year.
What this means if your reports showed growth
If your Search Console data showed impression growth through the second half of 2025 and early 2026, some portion of that growth was the logging error, not genuine performance improvement. The task now is working out how much.
Look at click data alongside impressions during the same period. Clicks were unaffected. If impressions climbed while clicks were flat or declining, that divergence is likely explained by the error.
This matters because SEO decisions were being made on that data. Page-level impression analyses, CTR improvement priorities, content audits triggered by apparent ranking changes - all need reviewing against corrected data.
The broader point about data quality
This is a useful reminder that no platform data source is infallible. Google Analytics has had attribution changes. Meta Ads Manager has documented measurement gaps. Search Console has now had a year-long logging error.
Triangulate your data. When impression data, click data, and analytics traffic tell different stories, investigate before drawing conclusions. Single-source reporting is a fragile way to run a channel.