Google’s num=100 Removal: The Update Behind the 87% SEO Visibility Crash
If you opened Google Search Console these past weeks and saw impressions, rankings, and keywords fall off a cliff, you’re not alone.
Google quietly removed the “num=100” parameter, and the ripple effects are massive.
What Changed
Until now, SEOs and rank trackers could tack “num=100” onto searches to pull 100 results at once instead of the default 10. That shortcut just vanished, and here are the results.
- 87.7% of sites experienced a drop in impressions.
- 77.6% saw a decrease in unique ranking queries.
- Short- and mid-tail keywords were impacted the most.
- Average positions increased because the “phantom” queries on pages 3 and beyond disappeared.
In summary, Google isn’t suddenly punishing your site; it’s just reporting the situation differently. The lost impressions primarily came from bots and scrapers rather than real human users.
Why Google Pulled the Plug
Google hasn’t commented publicly, but the move makes sense when we take a step back:
Cutting AI scrapers off at the knees
By removing the “num=100” parameter, a single query now returns only 10 URLs instead of 100. This change makes it 10 times more difficult and costly to scrape large amounts of data for AI training purposes.
Protecting Google’s infrastructure
The “num=100” feature was popular among bots, but most users rarely scroll past the first page of results. Disabling this parameter reduces unnecessary strain on Google’s servers, similar to a restaurant that stops serving customers who don’t actually show up.
Fixing “impression inflation”
Previously, if a webpage ranked #47, it would still be counted as an impression, even though no user actually saw it. This update removes those inflated impressions, resulting in cleaner, more accurate data that reflects genuine user engagement.
Who’s Hurting Most
SEO platforms: Tools like Semrush and Accuranker are working to update their crawlers. A tenfold increase in queries results in higher costs, slower data retrieval, and a greater risk of IP blocks.
Businesses: Many often misinterpret drops in impressions as ranking penalties, leading to unnecessary panic. The reality is that they never had that traffic to begin with.
AI companies: Their training datasets have become shallower, which biases their models toward mainstream, page-one content and sidelines niche voices.
What to Do About It
For SEOs: Stop obsessing over rankings on page 7. Focus your tracking on what users actually see: Page one.
For creators: Write for people, not for bots. Build your audience through social media, email, and community channels, not just through search.
For AI builders: The easy shortcuts are gone. Respect the robots.txt file, or find creative ways to source data ethically.
The Bigger Picture
Google has just reminded us who has control over the lens of the internet. While the web itself hasn’t shrunk, the measurable portion has. If your strategy depended on invisible impressions, it’s time to rethink your approach.
Ultimately, businesses don’t succeed by appearing on page seven. They win by being genuinely useful where it matters most: on page one.
Takeaway
The “num=100” update forces SEOs and marketers to rethink their approach. Instead of chasing visibility deep in the search results, success now means focusing on meaningful, page-one presence and diversifying discovery channels. While the metrics have been streamlined, they are now more closely aligned with measuring the true value of your work.
Want to stay visible?