RIP SERPS: Google axes ability to track keywords

Google recently made changes to a specific parameter that impacts the ability to view the first 100 results for any search query.

Why should I care

Well, if you work in the UK SEO industry, clients often want evidence that their monthly SEO spend is working.  “Where do I rank for xyz keywords.

Clients appreciate seeing their website rank for a keyword, particularly when it moves from #98 in Google to #5. It is this constant reporting that allows clients to have faith that things are always progressing in the right direction.

Now, Vanilla Circus and Circus AI can only report on the top 20 places. To the uninitiated client, it appears their site has dropped out of Google’s index, missing all “opportunity keywords” with traffic or transactional intent, excluding the first two pages of Google results.

Why have they done this?

Google recently disabled (or is in the process of deprecating) the &num=100 URL/query parameter that used to allow users and tools to load 100 search results on a single SERP (Search Engine Results Page). More.

Google doesn’t say anything other than we never supported “&num=100” (the number of results on a Google search results page ie 100), which is strange as it used to be in their search settings.

7 Possible reasons for this change

1. Combat scraping both from other LLMs and people like us!
2. Save money; 100 results on a single page is more resource-heavy.
3. Control data, offers SERPs services itself.
4. Piss off, users, we are all on ChatGPT!
5. More Speed and Efficiency.
6. Improved Accuracy, fewer bot impressions.
7. By making it harder for AI tools to get data, Google is protecting its core business from these new competitors. More.

And now it has gone, see https://www.google.com/advanced_search? 

Will it come back? Yep! In a 50 results per page form!

A Google engineer has made an error. SERP checking is one thing that made SEOs and business/brand owners alike bond with Google and want more than anything to rank #1.

Now it’s bad for

1. SEOs
2. For businesses looking to leverage Google organic search,
3. Google itself.

Takeaway: Did the Google engineer secretly work for ChatGPT?

Citations on Google’s &num=100 parameter change:

1. https://locomotive.agency/blog/google-removes-num100-parameter-what-this-means-for-your-website/

2. https://www.logicalposition.com/blog/google-retires-the-num100-parameter-what-it-means-for-seo-tools-gsc-data-and-smbs

3. https://www.stellarising.com/blog/google-removes-num-100-parameter-seo-impact

4. https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-modifies-search-results-parameter-affecting-seo-tools/556080/

5. https://www.seroundtable.com/google-search-drops-100-results-parameter-40097.html

6. https://searchengineland.com/google-search-confirms-it-does-not-support-the-results-per-page-parameter-462244

7. https://onlinedotmarketing.com/google-num-100-parameter-update

8. https://www.acsius.com/google-modifies-search-results-parameter-what-it-means-for-seo-tools/

9. https://www.stanventures.com/news/google-100-search-results-parameter-test-disrupts-seo-4345/

10. https://www.seo-kreativ.de/en/blog/google-num100-parameter-disabled/

11. https://www.reflectdigital.co.uk/blog/google-removed-the-and-num-100

12. https://www.brightvessel.com/google-killed-the-num100-parameter-heres-what-seo-tools-are-doing-about-it/

13. https://delante.co/google-has-disabled-the-num100-parameter/

14. https://brodieclark.com/the-great-decoupling-num100/

15. https://6smarketers.com/googles-eliminates-100-results-per-page/

16. https://web.swipeinsight.app/posts/google-disables-num-100-parameter-disrupting-seo-tools-and-rank-trackers-19471

17. https://www.newsminimalist.com/articles/google-search-stops-supporting-the-results-per-page-parameter-a02df1f4

18. https://ranks.com/news/google-ends-support-for-num100-serp/

19. https://serpapi.com/blog/google-experiments-with-restricting-results-per-page/

20. https://dogandrooster.com/blogs/google-testing-removal-of-100-search-results-parameter-what-this-means-for-seo