- What happened: In September 2025, Google removed the &num=100 parameter. SEO tools can no longer pull 100 search results in one request.
- Impact: Page-1 rankings remain accurate, but positions 11–100 are harder and more expensive to track. Search Console metrics also shifted.
- Why it matters: SEO is still effective. The fundamentals have not changed. What’s different is how we measure deep rankings.
- Our edge: True mastery means having more than one way to solve the problem. We combine multiple data sources, prioritize what matters, and adapt faster than competitors to keep your strategy stable.
What Changed
- Before: SEO tools could capture the Top 100 results in one call.
- After: It now takes 10 calls to collect the same data.
The result? Tracking deep rankings (positions 11–100) is slower, more costly, and sometimes incomplete. Leading vendors like Semrush, AccuRanker, and Sistrix have confirmed the impact.
Why Google Did This
Confirmed Motives
- Reduce scraping and abuse: Google has long discouraged bulk data collection.
- Protect infrastructure: Paginating spreads requests and reduces server strain.
- Cleaner Search Console data: SEOs observed sudden impression drops and average position shifts around mid-September, suggesting bots are no longer inflating metrics.
- Push toward APIs: With scraping harder, developers are nudged toward Google’s official (and paid) APIs.
Possible Motives (Industry Discussion)
- Limit AI competitors: Bulk SERP data was useful for training AI tools.
- Reinforce Page-1 dominance: If deep ranks are harder to measure, Page 1 gets even more attention and ad spend.
- Protect competitive intelligence: Makes it harder to reverse-engineer SERP patterns and ad mixes.
- Market timing: Google’s search share dipped below 90% for the first time in a decade, and ad revenue growth slowed. Tightening access fits a defensive strategy.
What It Means for Your Business
- Page-1 Data Stays Reliable
Your most valuable rankings (positions 1–10) are still tracked daily and remain accurate. That’s where most traffic and revenue come from. - Page-2+ Data Gets Thinner
Positions 11–100 are updated less often and may show as “N/A” in dashboards. That reflects a methodology change, not a loss in performance. - Search Console Looks Different
Expect impression drops or average position spikes. These shifts reflect cleaner human-driven data, not SEO losses. - Vendor Costs May Shift
SEO platforms are restructuring their systems. Some may pass higher infrastructure costs on to users, which could impact how data is packaged.
How We Navigate This for You
- Prioritize What Matters: We keep daily, accurate focus on Page-1 and “striking distance” keywords (positions 11–20).
- Blend Data Sources: We pair rank tracking with Search Console impressions to validate long-tail visibility.
- Use Early Warning Signals: We monitor impressions, CTR, and link growth to flag pages moving up before they hit Page 1.
- Test Multiple Vendors: We benchmark accuracy across platforms and budget for overlap when needed.
- Annotate and Educate: We flag methodology changes in reports and train teams to focus on ROI, not vanity metrics.
Mastery: Why Clients Trust Us
True mastery is not about relying on one tool or one playbook. Mastery means having multiple ways to solve the same problem and knowing which to use when.
- If rank tracking gets noisy, we pivot to Search Console and traffic analytics.
- If one vendor slows down, we have others benchmarked and ready.
- If metrics shift suddenly, we annotate and explain so clients don’t misread the data.
The more ways we have to solve a problem, the greater our mastery, and the steadier your results, even when Google moves the goalposts.
FAQ
Q: Did my rankings drop because of this?
No. Any sudden dips in “total keywords” or impression counts around mid-September 2025 reflect the methodology change, not lost performance.
Q: Is SEO still effective if the data is noisier?
Yes. Ranking higher still drives visibility, traffic, and revenue. The fundamentals have not changed — only the way deep ranks are measured.
Q: Why did Google make this change?
Confirmed reasons include curbing scraping, protecting infrastructure, and cleaning up data. Analysts also speculate it makes AI competitors’ lives harder and increases focus on Page 1.
Q: What data can I still rely on?
Page-1 rankings are solid. Page-2 (11–20) remains fairly accurate. For long-tail, we now use Search Console impressions, which are cleaner than before.
Q: How are you adapting?
We blend rank data with Search Console, test multiple vendors, use early warning indicators, and annotate reports so clients can trust what they are seeing.
Q: How does mastery help here?
Because mastery means resilience. We are not locked into one tool or one method. We combine multiple approaches so your SEO strategy keeps moving forward no matter what.
Bottom Line
This disruption does not make SEO less effective. Ranking higher still drives the visibility and revenue your business depends on.
What has changed is how deep rankings are measured. And that is our job: to adapt, filter the noise, and keep your strategy focused on the signals that matter most.
SEO remains the most effective long-term growth channel. Google will keep changing the rules. We will keep navigating those changes for you. If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
