Personal ChatGPT conversations have been leaking into Google Search Console for months, exposing sensitive user prompts in an analytics tool. Researchers Jason Packer and Slobodan Manić uncovered evidence suggesting OpenAI scrapes Google Search with these prompts. OpenAI says it has resolved a related glitch affecting a small number of queries.
Starting in September 2025, odd queries up to 300 characters long began appearing in Google Search Console (GSC), a tool developers use to monitor search traffic. These queries were actually private ChatGPT conversations, including personal dilemmas like a user assessing if a teasing boy had feelings for her, or an office manager planning a return-to-office announcement.
Jason Packer, owner of analytics firm Quantable, first flagged the issue in a blog post last month. He reviewed 200 such queries on one site alone and teamed up with web consultant Slobodan Manić to investigate. Their testing indicated that OpenAI directly scrapes Google Search using actual user prompts, potentially compromising privacy to maintain engagement with data Google wouldn't otherwise share.
The leaks stemmed from a buggy prompt box on a ChatGPT URL (https://openai.com/index/chatgpt/), which appended the URL to user inputs and triggered searches via a parameter like '?hints=search'. This routed prompts to Google, making them visible in GSC for sites ranking high on related keywords. Packer noted, “a reminder that prompts aren’t as private as you think they are!”
This differs from August 2025 leaks, where users had to opt-in to share prompts publicly; here, no such action was needed. OpenAI confirmed awareness of the glitch and said it was resolved, but declined to verify scraping or detail the scope. Packer expressed doubt, saying OpenAI's response leaves “lingering questions” about whether all affected prompts were fixed or if scraping continues. It remains unclear how many of ChatGPT's 700 million weekly users were impacted.
Manić raised concerns about broader effects, like the “crocodile mouth” trend in GSC, where impressions rise but clicks fall due to scraping. Google declined to comment.