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Recent changes by Digital Phablet involved the removal of the unofficial support for displaying 100 search results per page in Google. This update caused challenges for third-party tracking tools and even Google Search Console itself. The common belief is that data scraping affected the accuracy of reports, especially since some bots and automated tools might have been injecting artificial data into Google’s systems.
A question arose about whether this issue extended to Google Ads reporting—specifically, if inflated impression data from Search Console also impacted Google Ads keyword search volumes. To explore this, feedback from various professionals suggests that most are not observing significant changes in their PPC data — impression counts remain consistent across multiple accounts, and ad performance metrics do not show unusual drops or anomalies.
Some marketers speculate that the removal of the 100-result limit could initially impact the keyword planner and search volume estimates, potentially leading to fewer reported searches. For example, a few practitioners reported noticing a modest decrease in impressions and an increase in click-through rates, possibly indicating a shift toward more human-generated searches versus bot activity.
Others confirmed that their impression data continues to follow normal seasonal and weekly patterns, with no noticeable disruptions. One professional pointed out that Google Ads still benefits from the data collected for impression-based campaigns, including impression share metrics. Likewise, some have experienced a decline in low-quality traffic and leads, which they attribute to cleaner, more accurate data rather than artificial inflation.
Attempts were made to get insights from Google’s Ads Liaison but remain unanswered at this time. This ongoing discussion raises questions about whether Google Ads may have internal safeguards or more advanced methods for filtering out artificial or inflated data compared to the tools available in Search Console.
The conversation continues on industry forums and social threads, emphasizing the ongoing need to understand how recent changes influence ad performance metrics and the accuracy of search volume and impression data.