Google has confirmed a “logging error” that affected the product snippets reporting within the Google Search Console performance report. The issue occurred between May 15, 2024, and May 27, 2024, resulting in an increase in clicks and impressions for the Product snippet search appearance type within the search performance report and impressions overlay in the product snippet rich result report. This is just a reporting issue and has no impact on real Google Search rankings.
Details of the Issue
A week ago, a spike in impressions and clicks for product snippets was noticed. Some speculated it might be related to AI Overviews, but John Mueller from Google clarified it was a bug in Search Console reporting and not related to AI Overviews. He mentioned that the team was investigating and would add an annotation in Search Console and an entry in the data anomalies page once resolved.
Google's Confirmation
Google confirmed the reporting issue with an update, stating: "A logging error affected Search Console reporting on product snippets from May 15, 2024, until May 27, 2024. As a result, you may notice an increase in clicks and impressions during this period for the Product snippet search appearance type in the performance report and impressions overlay in the product snippet rich result report. This is just a logging issue, not an actual change in clicks or impressions."
Impact and Recommendations
If you noticed this unusual spike, it was due to a reporting glitch in Google Search Console. It is advisable to ignore the data within that date range for client and internal reporting purposes.
