Table of Contents
Timeline & Key Facts
~ Sept 10-11, 2025: SEO practitioners begin noticing that appending &num=100 to Google search URLs stopped yielding 100 results; sometimes only the first 1-2 pages load.
Sept 12-14, 2025: Multiple reports confirm Google has disabled/deprecated the &num=100 / n=100 SERP parameter globally. Semrush, Keyword Insights, Ahrefs, etc. acknowledge disruptions.
Sept 14, 2025: The change was officially noted in several SEO-tool vendor announcements.
What Changed, Technically & Functionally
Prior to the change, tools could send a single request (with a parameter
&num=100) to retrieve the top 100 organic results in one go.After the change, this parameter no longer works (or works inconsistently). To get the same 100 results, tools now have to paginate (e.g. using
&start=) essentially 10 separate requests instead of one.Desktop impressions in GSC have dropped sharply for many sites starting from around Sept 10. Average position metrics have improved (i.e. numerically lower position values) in many cases.