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In September 2025, Google quietly made a change that has caused significant disruption in the SEO world. The familiar &num=100 parameter, which allowed users to view up to 100 results on a single page, no longer functions as expected. Instead of delivering a full 100 results, Google now defaults back to showing 10 results per page. For businesses and the tools they rely on, this change has notable consequences.
For years, &num=100 was the go-to method for SEOs and reporting tools to pull the top 100 organic results in a single request. This made data collection faster, more efficient, and more consistent. Tools could track rankings accurately, giving businesses a reliable view of where they appeared in Google search results.
Without it, platforms now need to make up to ten separate requests to gather the same data. This increases costs, slows down reporting, and introduces more opportunities for discrepancies. Many SEO rank trackers relied heavily on this depth to provide comprehensive visibility.
Some rank tracking platforms are adjusting to the change. For example, AccuRanker announced it will no longer track the full Top 100 by default, focusing instead on the first two pages of results (roughly Top 20), with options for custom tracking depths coming in future updates. Meanwhile, Semrush reassures users that its core metrics, based on Top 10 and Top 20 visibility, remain unaffected. The overarching message is that deeper results are becoming less central to mainstream reporting and more costly to track.
A recent Search Engine Land article highlights the broader implications of this change. The article notes that Google Search Console and third-party tools have begun showing inconsistent or confusing data. Impressions, particularly for desktop searches, have dropped sharply, while average positions have improved, likely because lower-ranking results are no longer being reported. The article also points out that rank trackers now require more queries and infrastructure to collect what was previously fetched in a single request with &num=100.
Across our clients, we have seen over the past week:
It remains too early to determine the long-term impact, and we are monitoring the situation closely.
If you notice drops in impressions or changes in average position, it doesn’t necessarily mean your rankings have fallen. Much of this shift is due to the removal of &num=100. Businesses should:
While Google has not provided an official reason, possible motives include reducing scraping and automated queries, lowering server strain, and cleaning up reporting by removing impressions from lower-ranking results that users rarely see.
This change highlights the importance of not relying solely on a single metric. While impressions and average positions are useful, the real measures of success remain consistent: visibility to the right audience and meaningful traffic that supports business outcomes.