Since May 13, 2025, impression data in Google Search Console were incorrect due to a recording bug. Google confirmed the issue in early April 2026 and is rolling out a progressive fix. Result: your impressions will decrease in the coming weeks. Don’t panic, this is normal.
Key takeaways:
- A logging bug caused an overestimation of impressions in Search Console since May 13, 2025.
- Clicks and other metrics are not affected by this error.
- Google is deploying a progressive fix over several weeks: a drop in impressions in the Performance report should be expected.
- This change does not reflect an actual loss of visibility in search results.
A bug active for nearly a year
Google officially acknowledged on April 3, 2026 the existence of an error in its Search Console data recording system. Concretely, since May 13, 2025, the impressions shown in the Performance report had been artificially inflated without webmasters being informed.
As noted by Pierre Sauvé on LinkedIn, " it was a feeling that several SEOs had last year compared to other field data but impossible to confirm, notably with the removal of num=100 which also upends that metric a few months later.»
Google updated its data anomalies page, specifying that the error " affected only the recording of data " and that clicks, average positions and other indicators were not affected.
What to expect in the coming weeks
The fix is being rolled out and will span several weeks. During this period, you will likely notice a significant decrease in the number of impressions in your Search Console Performance report.
This drop is not a sign of an SEO problem or a penalty. It simply reflects a return to correctly measured data after almost a year of overestimation.
What this means concretely for your SEO tracking
If you use impressions as a performance indicator in your reporting, it is important to take this into account now. Any comparison of impression data between the post-fix period and the May 2025–April 2026 period will be mechanically skewed.
It is recommended to annotate this period in your tracking tools and inform your teams or clients before the drop becomes visible in dashboards.
The article “Official: Google Search Console had been displaying false impressions since May 2025” was published on the site Abondance.
