Google’s September Algorithm Shock: Are You Missing Out on GEO & SEO Essentials?

Noticed an unpredictable swing in your Google Search Console data around mid-September? Well, this isn’t just happening to you. From marketing consultancies to independent content creators, countless site owners witnessed an abrupt drop in impressions with seemingly improved average search positions. The chatter across forums and social platforms reflected widespread concern, but is it actually a “Google derank” or something more nuanced?

The answer is layered. What we’re seeing is not the result of a single change but a blend of significant developments:

• A reporting anomaly in Google Search Console skewing industry metrics.
• The growing sway of AI Overviews reshaping user behaviors and impression/click dynamics.
• Google’s ongoing core algorithm updates (2024–2025), which double down on quality and relevance.

Digidart, India’s pioneering best performance marketing agency breaks down each of these dimensions and shares a practical roadmap to interpret your site’s true health and build an SEO strategy ready for what’s next.

Sorting Fact from Fiction: Was Your Site Really Deranked?

Around September 10th, SEO circles were abuzz with suspense. Screenshots showed desktop impressions tanking, fueling fears of catastrophic failure. However, much of this panic stemmed from a technical shift:

The &num=100 Parameter and Its Ripple Effect

For years, SEO tools leveraged the &num=100 parameter to extract data from Google’s first 100 results in one go. This changed in September 2025 when Google phased out that capability, forcing paginated results with infinite scroll instead.

The ripple effects include:

• SEO reporting tools now showing smaller datasets, leading to incomplete ranking tracking.
• Google Search Console’s reporting becoming more “human-centric,” as impressions from bots (on positions 20–100) are excluded.

Decoding the Numbers

The immediate outcome?

• Impressions dropped sharply, mostly caused by the disappearance of bot-generated lower-ranking data.
• Average position improved mathematically, as only the stronger results remain in calculation.

Most importantly, this isn’t a case of Google actively deranking sites. For most businesses, visibility and reach are unchanged for real users the so-called “vanity metrics” are what disappeared.

What Digidart Recommends: Traffic Verification Steps

Before making dramatic changes, ensure any drop is genuine:

• Rely not just on GSC; check Google Analytics for user counts, sessions, and conversions.
• Analyze raw server logs for accurate traffic shifts.
• Compare mobile versus desktop data the anomaly should primarily affect desktop, not mobile reporting.

Understanding Click Drops in 2025: The “Great Decoupling” and AI Overviews

While September’s reporting quirks grabbed attention, a longer-term trend is quietly challenging traffic: Google’s AI Overviews. These AI-powered summaries occupy prominent placements and deliver answers instantly, often without users needing to visit the cited sites.

This is “The Great Decoupling” impressions might soar, but actual clicks slide. Your content may fuel AI Overviews and get credited, but clicks are harder to win. For brands and bloggers whose models depend on site traffic, this is a fundamental challenge.

How DareAISearch and Digidart Adapt

The rules of SEO are evolving:

• The goal shifts from “position #1 organic” to “featured in AI Overview.”
• Content should be authoritative, clear, and directly answer user intent.
• Long-tail and deep-dive queries offer more opportunities for meaningful engagement.

DareAISearch, Digidart’s proprietary tool, is engineered for this new world: it’s built for AI-first platforms, optimizing for discoverability on LLMs and contextual, entity-based indexing across leading search engines.

Thriving in the Future of Search

You can’t control AI features, but you can:

• Structure content with headings, lists, and FAQ schemas for easy parsing.
• Focus on brand-building being cited builds authority even in a zero-click environment.
• Add distinctive value beyond simple answers: proprietary data, tools, expert insights, and interactive experiences.
• Diversify your growth efforts, expanding beyond Google into email, social, and community strategies.

Ongoing Impact of Google’s Core Algorithm Updates (2024–2025)

If your confirmed traffic drop predates the September “glitch,” the underlying driver may be Google’s elevated standards for content. Updates in 2024 redefined what “quality” means.

E-E-A-T: Experience, Expertise, Authority, Trust

The evolved model, E-E-A-T, centers on genuine first-hand experience, expert authorship, and trustworthy site practices. Your content should reflect:

• Real usage, not just summarized research.
• Recognized expert contributors.
• Strong site security and transparent policies.

Goodbye to Shallow, “SEO-Only” Copy

Google is actively demoting generic, low-value, or purely keyword-centric content. Success hinges on original thought, fresh data, and genuinely helpful material.

Diagnosing a Real Google Derank: Digidart’s Audit Checklist

If your analytics confirm an actual traffic decline, a comprehensive audit is warranted. Key checks:

• Technical SEO:

1. Crawlability and Indexing: Use tools like Google Search Console and Screaming Frog to make sure Google’s crawlers can access and index all important pages. Check for crawl errors (such as 404s, blocked URLs, or redirect loops), and ensure your XML sitemap is up-to-date and referenced properly in robots.txt.
2. robots.txt & noindex Tags: Review your robots.txt file to confirm that it isn’t accidentally blocking important pages. Double-check that you haven’t left any “noindex” tags on pages that should be publicly visible, especially after site migrations or updates.
3. Core Web Vitals & Site Speed: Evaluate key user experience metrics: Largest Contentful Paint (LCP), Interaction to Next Paint (INP), and Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS). Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights to identify and fix loading delays, layout shifts, or poor responsiveness on mobile.
4. HTTPS Security: Make sure your site uses a valid SSL certificate so that all content loads securely, maintaining user trust and meeting Google’s requirements

• Content Quality:

1. Content Inventory & Audit: List out all content URLs and performance metrics (like traffic and engagement). Separate content into what should be kept, updated, or removed. Aim to update posts with outdated information, enrich them with new insights, and eliminate content that no longer serves your audience.
2. Current Search Intent: For important keywords, examine what currently ranks at the top. If your pages don’t match the type or style of high-ranking results, adjust structure, tone, or content depth to meet user expectations.
3. Prune Unhelpful Content: Remove or merge thin, duplicate, or irrelevant posts. Redirect deleted URLs to more authoritative or related content to preserve link equity and user experience.
   

• Backlinks:

1. Audit Backlinks: Use Ahrefs, Semrush, or Google Search Console’s Links Report to find high-quality links that may have been lost, as well as detect potentially toxic backlinks from spammy sites.
2. Remove or Disavow Toxic Links: Create a list of harmful links and use Google’s Disavow Tool if you see a clear pattern of spammy backlinks. This can help prevent algorithmic penalties for unnatural linking.
3. Restore Lost Good Links: Where influential backlinks have vanished, reach out to the linking websites to reclaim or replace links, helping rebuild your site’s authority.

• Manual Actions:
  1. Check for Penalties: In Google Search Console, look under the “Manual actions” section for any active penalties. If found, study the reason provided, address the specific issues (like spam, unnatural links, or policy violations), and submit a reconsideration request when fixed.
• Competitor Benchmarking:

1.  Analyze Outperformers: Identify which competitors now outrank your site for core keywords. Scrutinize their content quality, depth, user experience, backlinks, and technical structure. Use these insights to refine your own pages, close content gaps, and innovate where possible.
2. Stay Updated: Regular benchmarking ensures you’re responsive to shifting standards and strategies in your niche and helps you stay competitive over time.

Your Recovery Roadmap After a Ranking Drop

Digidart recommends a strategic, multi-channel approach, not a frantic algorithm chase:

1. Differentiate Real Issues from Reporting Glitches
   • Confirm a real drop via Google Analytics.
2. Focus on E-E-A-T and First-Hand Insights
   • Show expertise, actual experience, and cite credible sources.
3. Optimize for User Engagement
   • Write compelling titles/descriptions, aim for rich snippets, and use schema markup.
4. Strengthen Your Brand and Channels
   • Build email lists, community presence, and direct brand searches establish yourself as the destination.

And most importantly, leverage DareAISearch by Digidarts, India’s best AI SEO agency  for enhanced visibility in AI-driven search. Its advanced approach delivers up to 30% improvement in discoverability on multiple LLMs.

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