Buckle up, marketers—September 2025’s SEO earthquake hasn’t settled yet. What started as a quiet tweak has become a full-blown disruption: Google’s removal of the &num=100 parameter, limiting search results to just 10 per page. Since the change hit around September 11-14, 2025, Google Search Console (GSC) impressions have cratered for up to 88% of sites, while average keyword rankings appear to soar—artificially. At CodeSM, we’ve been tracking this evolution into October, drawing from expert analyses and community buzz. In this refreshed guide, we’ll unpack the lasting fallout, why it’s hitting AI and SEO harder than expected, and how to pivot your 2025 strategy for real resilience.
Death of search:
Google’s removal of the num=100 parameter is massively reshaping SEO data: 87.7% of sites lost impressions in Google Search Console, according to a new analysis of 319 properties by SEO Tyler Gargula, director of technical SEO at LOCOMOTIVE Agency.…
— Tom Grundy (@tomgrundy) October 8, 2025
What’s Behind the Shake-Up: From Test to Total Removal
The &num=100 parameter was a staple for years, letting SEO tools and scrapers pull up to 100 results in one go via a simple URL hack (e.g., &num=100). But between September 10-14, 2025, Google quietly deprecated it—no fanfare, just gone. Early reports from seroundtable.com on September 12 flagged inconsistent behavior, but by late September, it was official: results capped at 10, with pagination required for more. Google’s terse response? “It’s not something they support.”
SEO pro Marie Haynes’ mid-September X chart captured the chaos: impressions plunging while rankings climbed. Fast-forward to October 8, and the ripple effects are clearer. Tools like Ahrefs have adapted for Enterprise users, restoring 100-result views in their Rank Tracker via workarounds, but delays and costs are up 10x for everyone else. This isn’t a glitch—it’s a deliberate clampdown, likely targeting bot traffic spikes from AI scrapers in 2024-2025.
Why It Still Matters: A Marketer’s October Reality Check
One month in, the shake-up’s scars are deep. Impressions in GSC have dropped for 77-88% of sites, with keyword visibility vanishing for long-tail queries on pages 2-10. Those “improved” rankings? A mirage—lost lower-page data inflates averages, fooling tools into thinking you’re climbing when you’re not. Traffic and conversions may hold steady, but reporting just got messier.
For marketers, the real gut-punch is the AI angle. This change slashes the “visible web” by 90%, starving LLMs like ChatGPT of deep SERP data they scraped via proxies. Reddit’s stock dipped after AI citations tanked, and pros speculate Google’s protecting its moat against rivals like OpenAI. Broader trends amplify this: SERPs are evolving with AI Overviews and rich results, making top-10 dominance non-negotiable.
Client convos are trickier too—expect questions like “Why’d our impressions evaporate?” when the answer is “cleaner, bot-free data.” As one X thread warns, rank trackers are “lying” until updated, skewing ROI for affiliates and SMBs.
How to Thrive: October Action Plan for Marketers
This isn’t doom—it’s a reset. CodeSM has helped clients re-baseline amid the fallout; here’s your playbook:
1. Re-Baseline Your Data
Audit GSC weekly from October 9 onward, focusing on clicks over impressions. Use URL Inspection for crawl checks, and ignore pre-September baselines—they’re polluted. Cross-reference with tools like SEOPress Insights, which claim resilience to the change, to validate trends and spot any lingering bot artifacts.
2. Tool Up or Switch
Pagination hikes costs 10x, so vet tools: Ahrefs Enterprise handles 100 results for trackers, but others lag. SEOPress Insights claims immunity for rankings. Our audits flag gaps—don’t fly blind. Consider developer-friendly adaptations, like scripting for-loops with the start=n parameter to simulate bulk pulls without violating terms.
3. Reframe Client Stories
Script it: “Impressions dipped due to Google’s anti-bot purge—your top-10 traffic’s what counts.” Highlight long-tail resilience and AI exposure spikes. We craft reports that turn panic into progress, emphasizing how this “data cleanup” reveals true performance metrics for more accurate ROI discussions.
4. Own Your Distribution
SEO’s “rented land”—diversify to newsletters, social, and owned channels. Target top-20 for clicks; long-tail’s now a luxury. Build moats like direct outreach or AI-powered prospecting to land clients without search dependency, as one agency shared landing a six-figure deal via owned pipelines.
5. Partner for the Pivot
CodeSM decodes this daily—GSC audits, tool migrations, AI-proof strategies. Book a demo to lock in your edge. For AI SEO, prioritize structured data and schema to ensure your content surfaces in AI responses, even as deep SERPs fade.
Shift Focus to Clicks, AI Traffic, and Citation Tracking
As impressions plummet post-num=100 removal—down 77-88% for many sites— the silver lining is that clicks and overall traffic often remain steady, revealing a truer picture of human engagement without bot inflation. In fact, some marketers are spotting upticks in referral traffic from AI engines like Google Gemini, which saw a 46% surge in visits to 1.1 billion monthly in early October 2025, potentially channeling more users to cited sources.
Google’s Gemini AI chatbot received over 1 billion visits in September, per Similarweb estimates: 1.1 billion visits, up 46% from August. pic.twitter.com/XtlwBfKJAj
— Similarweb (@Similarweb) October 7, 2025
To capitalize, start benchmarking against AI-specific metrics: Track positions in AI Overviews, monitor citations in responses from ChatGPT or Perplexity (e.g., using custom scripts to query and log appearances), and compare them to traditional SERP rankings for a holistic view. This approach not only offsets impression noise but positions your content for the AI-driven future, where visibility in summaries could drive 10%+ usage boosts for qualifying queries. At CodeSM, we’re integrating these into client dashboards—reach out to benchmark your AI footprint today.
From Blindside to Power-Up
Google’s &num=100 removal, locked in since mid-September 2025, has shrunk the web’s “visible” layer by 90%, hammering SEO data and AI pipelines while boosting top dogs. But for savvy marketers, it’s a clarion call: prioritize quality over quantity, own your audience, and adapt fast. Recent developer insights reveal this as less a UX tweak and more a strategic play to favor capital-rich AI giants, sidelining startups from open data sources. At CodeSM, we’re turning this into client wins—reach out for your GSC review, and let’s build unbreakable strategies. Watch this space; as tools catch up and Google tweaks more, we’ll update you first. Remember, in this new era, distribution isn’t just key—it’s the product that sustains growth beyond algorithms.
