September 2025 Edition

Pat's September industry review showed mixed performance since June: beauty brands like Elf Cosmetics declined 15% YTD, pharmaceuticals varied widely (Merck +19%, AstraZeneca -16%), while real estate platforms consistently gained. AI Overviews expanded dramatically across all sectors, with June marking when retail and beauty brands finally gained significant traction.

The August 2025 spam update had minimal industry impact, with Pat calling it "run of the mill." Current ranking volatility may actually stem from Google's changes to the 100 result parameter rather than the spam update itself.

Google removed the "&num=100" search parameter, forcing ranking tools to collect data 10 results at a time instead of 100, increasing costs 5-10x. This crackdown on SERP scraping may explain discrepancies between Google's internal traffic data and external SEO tool reports.

This month, Pat covers:

• August 2025 Spam Update - What I'm Seeing & Hearing
• September Industry Review - What I'm Seeing & Hearing
• The Googs Is Testing Dropping The 100 Search Result Parameter - What That Means & How It Is / Will Impact Rank Tracking
• Ruh-Roh! Google Is Hiring An Anti-Scraping Engineering Analyst
• See You At BrightonSEO!