The Most Likely Reason: Google’s Data Filtering Update Affecting Search Impressions

In September 2025, Google introduced stricter filtering to remove bot and non-human traffic from Search Console data. In short, that means your impression numbers might look lower, but the quality of those impressions has improved. So, you’re most likely now seeing a truer picture of real human searches. For many websites, our clients included, this update has also led to an improved average position, since those irrelevant bot “impressions” were previously skewing performance downward.

How does this work? In plain English: By removing fake bot traffic, Google has made the data pool smaller and more accurate. Those bots often triggered impressions for irrelevant searches, which dragged down your average ranking. Now, with only real human searches counted, your site’s results are based on the keywords you genuinely perform well in, so your average position naturally improves.

Campaign and Competitive Factors Affecting Search Impressions

Beyond Google’s data clean-up, there are practical marketing reasons why impressions might shift. Many of which come down to how your campaigns are performing in a live, competitive environment.

Increased competition

Digital advertising is constantly changing, where if your competitors have recently increased their bids, expanded their budgets, or improved their ad quality (for example, through better copy, landing pages, or audience targeting), they may now be outranking you. This can lead to fewer impressions for your site and ads, not because your performance has declined, but because the competition has become stronger or more aggressive in key areas. Alternatively, if you’re not running any search ads, maybe you should explore whether or not your business should be running Google Ads.

Budget limits

If your campaigns are limited by budget, Google will simply stop showing your ads once the daily limit is reached. This means your ads might be missing opportunities to appear in front of potential customers, especially during peak search times. Checking key metrics in Google Ads can reveal how often your ads weren’t shown due to budget constraints. Unfortunately, this is a common and often overlooked cause of declining impressions.

Keyword relevance

Search behaviour and Google’s algorithms evolve over time. Keywords that once performed well can become less relevant as user intent shifts or new competitors enter the space with more finely tuned targeting. Regularly reviewing your keyword list and updating ad copy ensures your campaigns stay aligned with how real users are searching today. Even small tweaks to keyword match types or ad messaging can help recover lost visibility and strengthen your overall impression share.

For example, in the finance sector, a keyword like “home loans Tasmania” might have once captured broad intent, but today’s searchers could be using more specific phrases like “first home buyer loans Hobart” or “investment property finance in Tasmania”. Adjusting your keywords to reflect these nuanced shifts helps you stay relevant to real search behaviour and ensures your ads appear where they’re most valuable. That’s why we highly suggest running frequent digital audits on your business.

Technical and Content Issues Affecting Search Impressions

Organic search impressions can also decline due to factors within your own website. Often these are things that slowly build up over time and quietly affect performance.

Outdated or low-value content affecting search impressions

Google rewards websites that provide fresh, high-quality, and relevant information. If your content hasn’t been updated in a while, or if it no longer answers what users are actually searching for, rankings can slip. For example, a blog post titled “Best Digital Marketing Trends for 2022” might have performed well once, but by 2025 it’s most likely outdated. 

Refreshing your site with current insights and data not only improves user experience but signals to Google that your site remains active and authoritative. That’s exactly why we’re writing this article: to keep our content relevant, timely, and helpful. Clearly, it’s worked, you’re reading this, right?

Technical problems affecting search impressions

Even strong content can underperform if your website isn’t technically sound. Issues like slow load times, broken internal links (404 errors), or poor mobile usability can make it harder for users (and by extension, Google) to access your content. For instance, an eCommerce site with uncompressed images or a clunky checkout process might see both visibility and conversions drop as a result.

Indexing issues affecting your site

If Google can’t properly access or “read” parts of your site, the reality is those pages won’t appear in search results at all. Checking your Page Indexing report in Google Search Console helps identify which URLs are excluded and why. You may determine whether it’s due to duplicate content, incorrect tags, or crawl errors. Regularly monitoring this ensures your most valuable pages are visible and discoverable.

The Main Takeaway

Should you be worried? Probably not.

Search performance data in 2025 is becoming cleaner, more human-focused, and less inflated by bots and irrelevant traffic. So, while a drop in impressions might look alarming at first, it’s often a good thing, a sign that your reporting is now more accurate, not that your marketing has suddenly stopped working.