Site owners have been reporting a drop in Google Search data since August 15th, with many complaints circulating on social media. I noticed this myself this morning as well.
John Mueller confirmed the issue and wrote:
“Hi Juan, we’re aware of this issue and working on resolving it. This is just a logging issue and not representative of visibility changes in Search. We’re adding an annotation in Search Console to let folks know about this in the near future.”
Google also mentioned this on its data anomalies page:
“A logging error caused a decrease in impressions on the Generative AI performance report in Search for data starting on August 13, 2026. This issue affects data logging only and is ongoing.”
Here is a screenshot of the Search Console performance report showing the decline in clicks and impressions.
Glenn Gabe also flagged this on X,
“Heads-up, I’m hearing from site owners about a weird drop in clicks starting around 8/12 in GSC that might be a bug. Visibility reporting is stable, and analytics show no drop. Just a heads-up: if you are seeing a weird drop starting 8/12, visibility is still strong, + analytics shows no drop. Stay tuned.”
The good news here is that this appears to be purely a data logging issue on Google’s end, not an actual drop in search visibility or traffic.
SER article last night regarding this issue.
The post Google Search Console performance report shows decline appeared first on Search Engine Watch – SEO, AI Search, PPC News & Analysis.
