Something was very wrong. As I analyzed various websites across industries, red flags were popping up everywhere. “Why does it look like performance suddenly plummeted?” I thought.
The data showed that many sites’ keyword reports past page two showed a nosedive in the number of keywords, beginning around September 2025. So, what happened to create such a drastic downward trend?
What Changed
Historically, SEO tools such as Ahrefs and Semrush could request the first ten pages of Google using num=100, a Google search URL parameter that lets users see 100 results per page instead of the default 10. This parameter made it relatively inexpensive to report on:
- All keywords a site ranked for
- Visibility across pages 1-10
- “Striking distance” opportunities (positions 11-30)
Now, with the num=100 parameter no longer active, tools can only scrape one page at a time, making it significantly more difficult—and expensive—to gather the same data. As a result, most tools are limiting what they collect and display by default.
Why It Matters
This change affects how keyword visibility is reported, not how websites actually rank. While the rankings did not disappear, the visibility into deeper results did.
One likely motivation for this change is limiting how AI platforms, such as ChatGPT, scrape Google’s search results at scale. By restricting access, Google can protect its ecosystem and reduce the amount of data large language models (LLMs) can use to generate answers. This may help prevent users from bypassing Google (and Google Ads) for search queries. It may also introduce more uncertainty into LLM-generated results by providing less data to ground responses.
The Downside
With scraping limited to one page of results at a time, gathering the same dataset now costs roughly 10x more, forcing platforms to scale back what they report by default.
As a result:
- Keyword visibility beyond page two is becoming increasingly sparse
- Many keyword distribution charts now appear “compressed” toward the top of the search engine results page (SERP)
- Rankings past page 20-30 may no longer surface at all in standard reports, making keywords’ footprints look smaller overall
Impacts on SEO Reporting
SEO analysis is steering away from evaluation based on volume and toward outcomes. Impressions are becoming more reflective of real human searches, not scrapers, providing results that are more realistic and actionable.
We recommend increasing focus on:
- Website traffic data
- Keyword performance on page one of Google search results
- Incorporation of AI-mention tracking
Some SEO platforms addressed Google’s quiet removal of the parameter to maintain transparency with their users. Semrush, for example, noted that reporting on pages one and two of Google search results will remain unaffected, which aligns mostly with our experience. As of November, Ahrefs has stated it will again request data for the first 100 results. However, this seems to apply only to rank tracking (manually selected keywords) and not to keyword overviews that report on all keywords a domain ranks for.
Google Search Console (GSC) is also affected. With fewer bots scraping search results, impressions are declining, making month-over-month (MoM) and year-over-year (YoY) comparisons misleading in the short term, and impression data less consistent year-over-year. While click-through rate (CTR) often improves in this scenario, marketers will need to recalibrate how they interpret and weigh these metrics.
Our Stance
Google’s decision to remove the num=100 parameter may ultimately benefit brands that seriously invest in SEO. Websites that have already established strong page-one rankings stand to gain as Google limits how LLMs scrape search results, increasing the likelihood that AI systems will rely more heavily on top-ranking, authoritative pages.
While visibility into “striking distance” keywords is now more limited, we continue to identify growth opportunities through competitor gap analysis, highlighting relevant keywords competitors rank for that our clients have not yet secured, as well as on-page signals like thin content and low engagement.
Moving forward, our reporting will prioritize organic traffic, page-one keyword performance, and AI-mention tracking, while placing less emphasis on rankings beyond page one and short-term, year-over-year impression comparisons in Google Search Console.