An update on Google’s poisoning of search results
By Ahrefs
Guest Writer
Update November 6th
We continue to see changes to when and how often Google shows poisoned results to suspected SERP data providers. This issue has been reported across the industry, including coverage on Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Journal.
Page one data is now largely recovered and stable.
For some keywords, we’re rejecting additional abnormal results for page two and beyond, so you may notice a delay in getting updates where this applies.
Over the past few weeks, we've witnessed an increase in the "poisoning" of search results by Google, where different results are shown to suspected SERP data providers.
This is an industry-wide issue impacting many companies in our space. Depending on the data provider, we're seeing between 5% and 20% of search results affected in this way.
We already have multiple filters in place to detect and reject the abnormal results and request accurate replacements. We're also cleaning up any past results that may have been affected.
We’ll update you on any further developments through dashboard notifications.
Search engines regularly make changes, and what works to get accurate data today may not work tomorrow. We are continually monitoring the situation, and our aim remains to provide the most accurate and actionable data possible.
Please reach out to our customer support team via chat or email ([email protected]) if you need further help.