Google SEO Update 2025: Why Your Rankings & Impressions Dropped

I. The Silent Update That Shook the SEO World

In mid-September 2025, Google quietly retired one of its longest-standing URL parameters — &num=100. For years, this hidden setting allowed users and SEO tools to display up to 100 search results on one page instead of the default 10 (Barry, 2025a).

At first, the change went unnoticed. But soon, SEO professionals around the world began reporting strange fluctuations: rankings disappearing, keyword counts collapsing, and impression data nosediving. What looked like a massive algorithm update was actually a technical shift that changed how search data is collected and interpreted.

This small, undocumented update has since become one of the most disruptive changes in Google’s recent history — transforming rank tracking, SEO reporting, and the way marketers measure visibility.

II. Why the &num=100 Parameter Mattered

For almost two decades, the &num=100 parameter served as a crucial shortcut for SEO tools and analysts. It allowed platforms like Semrush, Ahrefs, and Serpstat to fetch 100 search results in one single request, making large-scale keyword tracking efficient and cost-effective (Logical Position, 2025).

When Google removed it, rank-tracking tools suddenly had to make ten separate requests — one for each set of 10 results. The change increased server loads and data costs tenfold.

As Logical Position explained, “Instead of one request for 100 results, it now takes ten requests — ten times the cost” (Logical Position, 2025). This shift broke many automated systems that monitored rankings, forcing companies to reduce how often or how deeply they tracked results.

What was once a simple, efficient way to analyze SERPs became expensive and time-consuming overnight.

III. Why Google Made the Change

Google has not publicly explained the update, but industry analysis points to three main motivations.

1. To Limit Mass Scraping and AI Data Harvesting

The &num=100 endpoint provided a backdoor for mass scraping — a method many SEO tools and AI developers used to harvest Google’s data at scale. By removing it, Google effectively raised the barrier for competitors trying to build search datasets or train language models on SERP data (Intero Digital, 2025).

2. To Reduce Server Load and Improve Performance

Rendering 100 results on one page requires significantly more resources than rendering 10. By enforcing pagination, Google ensures faster response times and a smoother user experience across devices.

3. To Centralize Data Control Through Google Search Console

Finally, this update increases the strategic importance of Google Search Console (GSC). As EarnSEO (2025) noted, by making third-party scraping harder, Google reinforces GSC as the official source of truth for organic performance data. This consolidation gives Google tighter control over how SEO metrics are collected and understood.

Together, these factors reflect a broader move toward data sovereignty — where Google safeguards the accuracy, efficiency, and exclusivity of its own search data ecosystem.

IV. The Great Data Correction: What Really Happened to Impressions

Following the 2025 Google SEO update, most websites noticed three clear data shifts inside Google Search Console.

First, impressions dropped sharply across nearly every property. This wasn’t due to a ranking penalty or reduced visibility, but because automated rank-tracking bots were no longer triggering impressions from deep SERP pages that users rarely visit. As a result, the total number of impressions now reflects actual human visibility rather than inflated bot-driven data.

At the same time, average position appeared to improve, since those low-ranking keywords on pages three to ten were removed from the equation. The metric now provides a cleaner, more realistic view of meaningful rankings that genuinely reach users.

Finally, clicks and click-through rate (CTR) remained stable, demonstrating that user engagement and search visibility were not negatively affected. In short, the update didn’t cause a loss of traffic — it simply revealed a more accurate, trustworthy representation of real-world performance (Barry, 2025b; Clark, 2025).

This "Great Data Correction" has shifted the industry away from vanity metrics toward authentic performance data that truly reflects user behavior.

V. Rethinking SEO Measurement: The New KPI Hierarchy

The post-num=100 landscape requires marketers to measure success differently. Old metrics like “total impressions” and “keywords in top 100” no longer tell the full story.

Instead, focus on metrics that reflect business outcomes and user intent:

• Organic Clicks and Sessions — Show real engagement with your website.

• Conversions and Revenue — Prove the tangible ROI of organic traffic.

• CTR by Position — Helps you optimize titles and meta descriptions for better visibility.

• Keywords in Top 10 or 20 — Reveal your presence in high-value SERP real estate.

• Average Position (with context) — Useful for tracking keyword clusters, not overall success.

These metrics give you a grounded understanding of how your SEO actually performs — not how many bots saw your pages.

VI. GSC: The New Source of Truth for SEO

With external tools now limited, Google Search Console has become the central pillar of reliable SEO data. It shows real search queries, impressions, clicks, and positions based on human searches, not automated crawls.

To get the most out of GSC in 2025:

1. Find “Striking Distance” Keywords: Filter for queries ranking between positions 11–30. These are your easiest wins for first-page visibility.

2. Analyze CTR by Position: Identify pages with low CTR despite good rankings — often a signal to improve headlines or meta descriptions.

3. Do Page-Level Query Analysis: See which keywords each page ranks for to uncover long-tail opportunities.

4. Separate Branded and Non-Branded Queries: Understand how much of your traffic comes from brand recognition vs. organic discovery.

As Logical Position (2025) noted, this is the most trustworthy dataset available to SEO professionals today — reflecting genuine human interaction with Google Search.

VII. Keyword Strategy 2.0: Quality Over Quantity

With deep tracking now limited, keyword strategy must evolve. The focus is no longer on tracking thousands of keywords but on ranking meaningfully for the right ones.

• Prioritize “Striking Distance” Opportunities: Push keywords already near page one into the Top 10 through optimization, internal links, and content refreshes.

• Start Small, Build Up: For new sites, target low-competition, high-relevance keywords first. Climbing to page one for smaller terms builds trust signals that fuel long-term authority.

• Focus on Page-One Domination: Since continuous scroll has ended, page two is essentially invisible. Ranking within the Top 10 is now critical for traffic and conversion.

As Intero Digital (2025) emphasized, this mindset shift — from keyword volume to keyword value — is central to modern SEO success.

VIII. Competing Without Bulk SERP Data

Even without 100-result pages, smart SEO professionals can still conduct effective competitor research.

• Use Tool Insights: Keyword gap analyses, top-performing content reports, and backlink audits from tools like Ahrefs and Semrush still provide valuable benchmarking data based on proprietary indexes.

• Perform Manual SERP Checks: Regularly Google your top keywords in incognito mode. Observe what types of content rank highest — blog posts, listicles, videos — and identify the SERP features that dominate your niche.

This hands-on observation fosters a deeper understanding of why certain pages win — context that bulk scraping could never provide.

IX. Pagination, AI Overviews, and the Future of Search

In 2024, Google rolled back continuous scroll and returned to classic pagination, meaning users must now click “Next” to see more results (Barry, 2025a). This reintroduces a clear behavioral barrier and makes page-one visibility more valuable than ever.

At the same time, Google’s AI Overviews are beginning to replace traditional organic listings with synthesized answers. Research from Zhang & Singh (2025) describes this new era as Generative Search Optimization (GSEO) — where websites compete to be cited within AI-generated results rather than simply ranked below them.

These moves — pagination, AI summaries, and the num=100 retirement — all point toward a single strategic goal: greater data control and a tighter, AI-driven search ecosystem.

X. The 90-Day Action Plan

Weeks 1–2: Communicate & Re-baseline
Explain to clients and teams that impression drops are data corrections, not penalties. Establish mid-September 2025 as your new baseline for comparison.

Weeks 3–6: Audit Tools & KPIs
Ask your SEO platform how it’s adapting to the new data collection limits. Update your KPI dashboards to emphasize clicks, conversions, and CTR instead of impressions.

Weeks 7–12: Launch a “Striking Distance” Offensive
Use GSC to identify high-value keywords in positions 11–30 and optimize those pages for quick wins. Update title tags, refine meta descriptions, and strengthen internal linking.

This structured plan helps agencies stabilize reporting, rebuild confidence, and refocus on real performance.

XI. The Takeaway

The Google SEO update of 2025 wasn’t just another algorithm tweak — it was a strategic redefinition of how search data is gathered and trusted.

Marketers who relied on inflated or automated metrics saw sudden chaos. But those who understand the shift recognize it as a data purification moment — an opportunity to move toward cleaner, human-first measurement and smarter strategy.

Success in this new era belongs to brands that:

• Prioritize real user engagement over vanity metrics,

• Build trust and authority through expertise (E-E-A-T), and

• Optimize content for both humans and Google’s AI systems.

The post-num=100 world isn’t the end of SEO —
it’s the beginning of a smarter, more trustworthy digital future.

References

Barry, D. (2025a, September 12). Google Search rank and position tracking is a mess right now. Search Engine Land. https://searchengineland.com/google-search-rank-and-position-tracking-is-a-mess-right-now-461984

Barry, D. (2025b, September 18). 77% of sites lost keyword visibility after Google removed the “num=100” parameter. Search Engine Land. https://searchengineland.com/google-num100-impact-data-462231

Clark, B. (2025, September 22). Were we wrong about “The Great Decoupling” after all? Brodie Clark Consulting. https://brodieclark.com/the-great-decoupling-num100

EarnSEO. (2025, September 14). Why you can’t see 100 results on Google anymore — and what it means for SEO. https://www.earnseo.com/why-you-cant-see-100-results-on-google-anymore-what-it-means-for-seo

Intero Digital. (2025, September 19). Google quietly killed the “num=100” parameter: Here’s why your rankings and impressions just got weird. https://www.interodigital.com/blog/google-quietly-killed-the-num100-parameter-heres-why-your-rankings-and-impressions-just-got-weird

Logical Position. (2025, September 23). Google retires the “num=100” parameter: What it means for SEO tools, GSC data, and SMBs. https://www.logicalposition.com/blog/google-retires-the-num100-parameter-what-it-means-for-seo-tools-gsc-data-and-smbs

Zhang, W., & Singh, R. (2025, September 28). Beyond keywords: Driving generative search engine optimization with content-centric agents [Preprint]. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2509.05607