Your September visibility drop may be a rank tracker losing data
Summary
A third-party visibility chart that fell in mid-September may show a tool losing access to Google results, not a site losing rankings. One rank tracker lost most of its data, and Sistrix is collecting at a reduced rate.
Real ranking volatility hit the same weeks, so the chart alone cannot tell the two apart. Check any drop against Search Console clicks and impressions before acting on it or reporting it.
Some rank tracking and SEO visibility tools have been getting less data out of Google Search since around September 13, according to Search Engine Roundtable’s report from September 18. Derek Perkins of Nozzle, a rank tracking tool, told Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Roundtable’s executive editor, that most of Nozzle’s attempts to scrape Google were being blocked and that the data it could collect fell by about 80%. Perkins saw the same problem with data from DataForSEO, which sells search results data to other tools. Sistrix, a German SEO visibility tool, posted on its status page on September 16 that Google had changed how results are delivered and that its data collection “is currently running at a reduced rate.”
A visibility chart that dips in mid-September now has two possible causes, and they overlap in time. Google’s rankings were genuinely moving: Search Engine Roundtable had already reported ranking reversals on September 4 and September 12, then an update on September 15. A tool that loses most of its samples can draw the same falling line as a site that lost rankings.
One site, three different answers
SEO consultant Glenn Gabe posted charts on X, embedded in the same report, that show how far the tools can disagree. Gabe says one site he knows dropped by nearly 100% in the unconfirmed September 4 update and then fully recovered, and he checked the tools against the site’s actual traffic. The three big tools told different stories about that recovery:
| Tool | Showed the recovery |
|---|---|
| Ahrefs | Yes |
| Semrush | Yes, with a lag |
| Sistrix | No |
Gabe’s guess is that Ahrefs can still scrape Google, Semrush is scraping more slowly, and Sistrix “is way behind.” Anyone judging that site by Sistrix alone would have seen a site that had not recovered.
Sistrix does not deny the slowdown. Steve Paine of Sistrix told Search Engine Roundtable that Google has been changing how results are delivered for about a year, “currently at a very high pace,” and that data is still flowing and its tool is still updating. Schwartz says he asked about a dozen other tools and had not heard back, so it is not yet clear which other tools are affected. His own guess is that Google is winning for now and that the tools will adapt.
What to do
- Check any drop dated from September 13 onward against Search Console clicks and impressions for the same days before you act on it. Search Console data comes from Google directly, so scraper blocking does not touch it. Gabe settled his case the same way, with the site’s real traffic.
- When two tools disagree about the same site in this period, check first-party data before trusting either one. In Gabe’s example, the tool that missed the recovery was the one known to be losing data.
- Read your tool’s status page before explaining a drop to a client. Sistrix is posting updates on its status page, and other vendors may follow.
- If your own dashboards pull from DataForSEO or another search results API, look for thin or missing data since mid-September. Perkins saw the problem there too, so a gap in your reports may not be a gap in your rankings.
Nothing needs changing on the site itself. The risk is a wrong diagnosis: rewriting pages or blaming an update for a loss that only exists in a third-party chart.