Google Disabled The num=100 Query Parameter–What This Means For Your Business

For most of Google’s history as a search engine, results have been limited to 10 listings per page. But savvy users find workarounds, like the num=100 query parameter that would yield 100 results. Ten times the search results, ten times the fun. Well that game is over, as Google has recently disabled this flag. And what could seem, on the surface, like a minor inconvenience for web users, may actually spell a sea change for search engine ranking going forward.

Why The Change?

Google hasn’t provided concrete reasons, and has stuck to merely confirming that the flag has been disabled and that it was never officially supported. But with a change that’s potentially this big, speculations abound. 

Mostly the assumed reasons have to do with targeting web scraping, which is suspected to have disrupted Google's own data and Search Console performance metrics. It’s a well-known and -accepted fact that marketing agencies utilize tools to track client ranking in online searches–the resulting vital stats help to guide decisions, from content marketing to SEO work and beyond. Utilizing this flag enabled marketers to get a handle on top ranking keywords and phrases that could be used to set clients apart from competitors, earning them a more prominent position in search results. These are perfectly good and on-target reasons to use the num=100 flag.

However, that’s not the whole story. Google doesn’t make the only web-scraping technology out there–plenty of bots are around these days, from large language models and other generative AI, to more niche industry services. And likely most or all of these could have been using Google search results to fuel their own growth. No one knows anything for sure, but a protective approach could be at the root of Google’s recent move. And really, who can blame them?

With more and more bots scraping search results, Google wants to protect what’s theirs. And with preliminary statistics showing a major drop off in desktop impressions on websites after the search flag was disabled, it seems that the bots accounted for quite a few of them. 

Why It Matters

But let’s get down to the underlying questions you’re likely asking yourself–why does this change matter for businesses today? Why does this matter for my business?

For one thing, companies who are paying for results from third-party rank checking tools may now have to pay an exponentially higher price to get the same output going forward. Rank-tracking tools could end up increasing their cost and complexity, being forced to spend more time as they paginate through multiple pages of results. 

For another thing, current Search Console results could very well be funky, at best. It’s been reported that impressions are far off what they were mere weeks ago, suggesting that many of the recorded impressions were the results of bots, and not actual internet users. For business owners, this could mean that, going forward, your ranking results and impressions could vary from the norm, and potentially not in a good way. That said, clicks haven’t been reported as changing much, backing up the idea that most actual human users (e.g. potential customers) aren’t going past the first page or two of online results anyway.

And that lines up with another potential reason for the shift–that Google could be dedicating more engineering resources to improving the quality of the first page of results. 

On that topic, here’s a real-world question: how many search engine results pages (SERPs) matter, really? The answer could end up being far less than you think. At least where internet users are concerned. Some industry experts feel that it’s really only the top 20 results that help to inform business decisions. 1-10 are obvious must-haves, 11-20 are where opportunities for growth are, so, also must-haves. The information that can be mined from page two can give companies a competitive edge with keywords and terms that rank high on sites that maybe fall short in other areas. 

Whatever the case, industry leaders are now asking, “Do you need keyword data below Top 20?” Right now we can’t say for sure, but this shift from Google could have the potential to improve search accuracy and data reliability. Regardless of what this change portends, at Alt Media Studios, we haven’t skipped a beat–we’re still delivering.

Your Marketing Agency Matters

During all the turmoil of these last few weeks, your friendly neighborhood agency for digital marketing in Cleveland has been hard at work. We’ve always had a cautious, forward-thinking approach, and so we were prepared when Google flipped the switch on the num=100 flag. We have our own, proprietary ranking tool that’s been hard at work tabulating client statistics. In fact, many of our clients may not even see a huge shift, because just two days after Google’s change was noticed, we had retooled and reinstated our technology. Pair that quick reflex with the fact that our SEO team has been hard at work, analyzing client keywords and tweaking current lists for better outcomes, and it’s clear–we were ready. Our clients already had what they needed, built right in to our service model.

When your marketing agency is always thinking ahead and working for you, even behind the scenes, industry changes just don’t have as big of an impact. And when your digital marketing team has every skill under one roof, software developers can quickly jump on projects like this to ensure that clients aren’t hit hard. If these vital skills are being outsourced, there’s no telling how long it could take to react. At AMST, we remain nimble and flexible, thanks to our comprehensive skill set and team-centered approach. 

So, what will the future bring for search-result-scraping bots? Who can say. What we can say with certainty is that our clients will always be taken well care of, through every shift we encounter. 

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