Google announced a logging error on Friday, April 3rd in the data anomalies report and explained that error prevented the accurate logging of impressions in GSC since May of 2025. That's right, almost a full year of inaccurate impressions. How bad of a logging error? We don't know yet, but we will all find out in the coming weeks. Google said site owners may notice a decrease in impressions in the Performance reporting. They also said that other metrics were not affected. More on that in a second.
Here is what Google said on April 3rd:
"This issue will be resolved over the next few weeks; as a result, you may notice a decrease in impressions in the Search Console Performance report. Clicks and other metrics were not affected by the error, and this issue affected data logging only."
Here is my tweet about that on X from Saturday:
Almost a year of inflated impressions? Could this error have caused some of the alligator graphs we have seen? -> Google Search Console misreported impression data since May 13, 2025 due to a logging error. Corrections will roll out in the coming weeks. https://t.co/F8cgjRjmIP… pic.twitter.com/2kOvNWA3NF
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) April 4, 2026
The Great Decoupling - Was "alligator trending" as bad as we thought?
Most people in the SEO industry know what The Great Decoupling is and what "alligator trending" looks like in GSC. That's when there's a point when impressions started to surge as clicks decreased. So basically, a decoupling of clicks and impressions over time. And that created a graph resembling an alligator opening its mouth. Most attributed that to the impact from AI Overviews where users were getting an answer in the SERPs via the AIO, but then not clicking through. So impressions would go up when clicks would decrease.Here is what that looks like:
But now that we know there was a logging error that inflated impressions in the Performance reporting, will we see the alligator closing its mouth? In other words, will impressions come back down to normal (or closer to normal) closing the gap that caused many to scream bloody murder about the impact from AI Overviews? It's hard to say at this point, but we'll know soon enough.
Other metrics unaffected?
Google also explained that other metrics in the Performance reporting were unaffected, but how could that be? Click-through rate is based on impressions and clicks, and average position is impacted by when your content ranks in the search results and which position it was ranking in when receiving that impression. We don't know the details of how the logging error occurred, but it's odd to say the other metrics were unaffected. Again, we'll find out soon enough.Export your GSC data now.
One thing is for sure, all site owners should be exporting their GSC data soon. I have published several tutorials about how to bulk export data from GSC via the Search Console API using Analytics Edge. That's a great way to go to ensure you aren't limited by the 1000 row limit in GSC. Once you have your data exported, you will be able to compare the data to what was being reported before the fix.This should be interesting. Stay tuned.
GG
