What is the &num=100 parameter?
The &num=100 parameter is a query parameter you could append to a Google search URL to ask Google to show 100 search results on a single page instead of the default 10.
SEO tools and rank trackers used this “hack” to monitor how well pages were ranking deep in search (for instance, positions 11–100) in one request, rather than paging through many pages.
This helps to consolidate data and reduces the number of queries/API calls required.
What Google Changed & When
Around September 10 2025, many in the SEO community observed that &num=100 was disabled or stopped working reliably. To date the data retrieval limit has continued to cause decline in impressions and ranking.
This has also been reported by SEO dedicated sites and forums including:
Search Engine Journal , Search Engine land and Reddit forums
Google has not yet made a public, formal announcement in their official blogs confirming or explaining the change as of the latest reports.
What Effects of the Change
Rank tracking tools are now finding that grabbing the top 100 results requires 10 separate requests (pages) instead of one. That increases costs in terms of bandwidth, API usage, and infrastructure.
For SEOs that are currently using third party trackers including SEMrush, AHrefs, Surfer or other related tools, this may also result in the top 10 results being shown only.
In Google Search Console (GSC), many sites saw a sharp drop in impression counts, especially from desktop searches, because many of the impressions that were previously counted via scraping with &num=100 are no longer included.
Average position metrics also improved for many keywords, because the lower ranking (and often non-visible) positions no longer contribute to impressions.
Has Google Acknowledged This?
So far, Google has not officially confirmed this change in their public communications or update logs (like Google Search Central).
What You Can Do: Fixes & Workarounds
Here are some ways to adapt:
1. Rely more on “real human” data
Unfortunately, If the &num=100 limit continues, one practical approach is to manually check rankings directly on Google.
This should only be done for keywords that are highly important to your business and are proven to drive strong click-through rates (CTR). When doing so, use Incognito mode to avoid personalised results influenced by your past search history.
Focus on metrics like clicks, user engagement, or top page visibility (positions 1-10 or 1-20) rather than trying to track deep-ranking positions if they’re not visible to most users.
2. Adjust rank tracking tools
If you use tools like Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, etc., check whether they’ve updated to handle pagination of results properly now that &num=100 is no longer working. You may need different settings/plans.
3. Monitor Search Console closely
Keep an eye on impressions, average position, and click-through rate (CTR). Don’t assume drops in impressions always mean ranking loss—this change can cause drops even when your traffic is unchanged.
4. Optimize for top results
Since most users don’t scroll past the first page, and now deeper ranking results are less visible/data is less accessible, focus your SEO efforts on boosting pages to the first page (top 10–20 positions).
5. Wait for official updates
Google sometimes does internal changes quietly, then follows up with explanatory posts or guidance for webmasters and tool providers. Watch Google Search Central announcements, Webmaster blogs, or notices from SEO tool companies.
