What providers describe
SISTRIX’s 16 September notice records reduced collection following further delivery changes. Its later explanation describes normal-looking but divergent result sets. Nozzle’s research, associated with Derek Perkins, analyses unexpected departures from each query’s historical set of usual sites. Both are provider observations, not a published Google specification.
Evidence: SISTRIX system status ↗ · Johannes Beus, SISTRIX: collection changes ↗ · Derek Perkins / Nozzle: Poisoned Google SERPs ↗
What practitioners noticed
In Barry Schwartz’s 18 September report, Glenn Gabe compares tool readings with a site’s known traffic history and describes different recovery signals across vendors. Derek Perkins reports substantial collection difficulty. Those accounts flag measurement risk; a single site comparison cannot establish the accuracy of each platform across the market.
Evidence: Glenn Gabe and Derek Perkins, reported by Barry Schwartz ↗
Our viewpoint: ‘poisoned’ needs careful attribution
The term describes the providers’ interpretation of suspicious output. It should not be turned into an independently established claim that Google deliberately falsifies every automated result, or a percentage applying to all searches. The method, baseline and sample determine what a study can support.
Ordinary rankings also change. A detection rule based on historically common sites needs a way to distinguish a real change from a collector-specific anomaly. Independent browser comparisons and repeated matched observations strengthen an investigation; a large dataset alone does not eliminate that classification problem.
Practical implications
Separate two questions in a report: did the provider recover the destination, and did the result set represent the search conditions intended? Keep raw snapshots and timestamps where available. Seek an explanation when an unusually large share of established competitors vanishes simultaneously.
For your own site, use business outcomes and first-party clicks as additional evidence, without assuming that stable traffic disproves every individual ranking movement. A genuine SEO change and a measurement problem can happen together.
Sources and verification
Checked 31 October 2026. We reviewed the public material linked below. We have not independently benchmarked the providers or tested live Google tokens for this article. A mutable status page may change after this check.
- Johannes Beus, SISTRIX: collection changes ↗
Published 7 October; direct provider account.
- Derek Perkins / Nozzle: Poisoned Google SERPs ↗
Provider research with a disclosed method and downloadable aggregate data; a changing research page.
- SISTRIX system status ↗
Dated 16 September notice about reduced collection.
- Glenn Gabe and Derek Perkins, reported by Barry Schwartz ↗
18 September first-hand interviews and reproduced practitioner observations.
