Websites across the United States and Canada observed significant, anomalous spikes in Google Search Console clicks between October 31 and November 2, 2026, which analysts attributed to bot traffic or a logging error.
These spikes, ranging from two to 6.5 times normal click volumes, occurred without corresponding increases in impressions or search rankings, indicating they did not originate from genuine human search activity.
The unusual traffic was characterized by exceptionally high click-through rates, often between 45 percent and 100 percent, primarily on desktop devices.
These clicks targeted pages ranking between positions 12 and 54 — typically found on the second to sixth pages of search results — for numerous unique and one-off query variations, according to analysis.
Barry Schwartz, writing for Search Engine Roundtable, reported that several SEO professionals, including Joy Hawkins, Marie Haynes, and Glenn Gabe, confirmed observing these anomalies across various client sites.
Marie Haynes, whose company developed the agentic SEO and AI search analysis system Marie’s Brain, utilized the tool to identify and analyze these widespread discrepancies.
Google has not yet issued a public statement regarding the cause of these specific click anomalies.
Webmasters seeking to filter these misleading data points from their Google Search Console reports have several options.
One method involves applying a top-bar Page filter to isolate and analyze individual URLs that experienced spikes, allowing unaffected trends to be observed.
Alternatively, users can examine the Device: Mobile report, which typically shows unaffected trends, or filter the Pages tab by setting the Position greater than 10 to specifically identify the deep-ranking URLs most impacted by the bot activity.
These filtering techniques help SEO professionals maintain accurate data analysis despite the transient bot-induced fluctuations.
Source: Search Engine Journal
