The Day the Scoreboard Reset

Google recently reset how it counts search “impressions” – the number of times your site appears in search results – which caused a sharp one-time permanent drop in reported impressions around mid-September 2025. This was not an actual loss of traffic or visibility, but rather a recalibration of the data. Essentially, Google filtered a lot of low-ranking impressions that were more likely to be bot-driven, making the remaining metrics more accurate reflections of real human searches.

Because of this update, impression totals before vs. after that date aren’t directly comparable (the visibility baseline was effectively reset). However, with users often getting answers directly on Google without clicking, impressions on qualified (high-intent) queries have become an even more vital KPI for visibility. This cleaner, post-update impression data provides a better barometer of how often your business is truly showing up for the searches that matter - provided you’re measuring the right terms.

Zero-click LLM search and You

Even your low-tech uncle is asking about AI, perhaps due to these eye-popping market cap numbers:

Part of your search optimization team’s evolving responsibilities is sculpting your website into better LLM food. This is part revolution, part return to form. Success still hinges on timeless fundamentals of SEO: clear labeling, well-structured content, authoritative information, and satisfying the searcher’s intent with clear, delightful experiences.

Many things touted as “AI SEO” are a soup of imprecise, context-blind generalities. Lots of the recommendations floating around (e.g. endless blog spam or directory maintenance) are just regurgitated 20-year-old tactics summoned from an LLM-generated bag of words. Our challenge remains establishing the best KPIs (the ones most-correlated with your sales opportunity), then moving the needle.