Why your Google Search Console data looks different this week

If you have logged into Google Search Console this week and noticed big shifts in impressions or average position, you are not imagining it. Lots of brands have seen the same thing this week, and it all comes down to a quiet change from Google.

What Google changed

Google has removed the &num=100 parameter. This was something SEO tools used to pull the top 100 results from the SERPs in one go.

Here is why that matters:

• Scraping tools that used this parameter were inflating impression counts in GSC because Google was treating those scrapes as real impressions.
• With the parameter gone, bots can only fetch 10 results at a time

Why Impressions have dropped

Those bot-driven impressions have now disappeared, which makes it look like your impression numbers have fallen off a cliff. In reality, nothing has changed with how users are seeing your site. The data is just cleaner.

Why Average Position has improved

For years, many SEOs suspected that the average position metric in GSC was skewed by bot activity. A lot of impressions were being logged from pages 3 to 10 which never lined up with real user behaviour.

Now that those scrapes have been filtered out, average position looks much stronger. This is not an actual improvement in rankings. It is simply the removal of noise.

What to do next

This change means reporting needs a slight shift. Here is what to focus on:

• Do not panic if you see impression numbers drop. 
• Do not celebrate if your average position suddenly looks better. 
• Keep focusing on clicks and on-site performance data in GA4 because that shows you the real picture. 

Final Thoughts

This update is not a bad thing. In fact, it is a step forward because the data we see in GSC is now a clearer reflection of how real users are interacting with search results. Cleaner data means fewer distractions and less noise in reporting, which makes it easier to see what is actually driving performance.

 At TAL, we are using this as an opportunity to help clients look beyond vanity metrics like impressions and average position. What matters most is the impact search has on the bottom line, so our focus is firmly on the numbers that really count: clicks, conversions and ultimately revenue.

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