Rich Tatum »∵«

SEO Update: Final update on the &num=100 situation. We have now received a statement from Google related to the &num=100 parameter being disabled, with the response being somewhat unsurprising. While @rustybrick was seeking feedback on both the rank tracking implications and the changes to Google Search Console, the response was quite general and didn't answer many of the concerns from the community: "The use of this URL parameter is not something that we formally support." – Google Spokesperson The intentionally brief response doesn't shed light on the primary concern: why are our GSC impressions and average position data so out of whack!? I suspect we won't receive a clear answer on this point (covered in more detail in my article). With this in mind, it is now time to annotate your GSC reports for September 10th, 2025, and move forward with the knowledge that impressions data can be heavily inflated by rank trackers. To such an extent that I've seen situations where impressions declined by a whopping 47%. There is likely more to this story that makes an explanation difficult to communicate transparently from Google's end, with there being plenty of unusual anomalies within the declining dataset and leading up to the more forceful change that don't make complete sense. The impact on rank trackers will be one to watch closely. Most tools have said that a top 20 ranking set should be enough for most customers. Personally, I'd ideally like to have the top 100 still, considering how movement beyond position 20 can often be quite helpful to diagnose issues within the work I do. And with rank trackers ramping up once again, I expect that artificial impressions will also now gradually increase over time. But interestingly, I expect that average position on desktop in GSC in particular will remain higher, considering &num=100 has been disabled. As a somewhat unexpected outcome, there is now the potential to give more credibility to 'average position' in GSC, which has ironically come at a time when 3rd party rank trackers have had to reevaluate their business models. Again, we don't know the full story behind these changes from Google, but a simple change like disabling &num=100 sure has had far-reaching implications. And for those who still think that Google will reverse the &num=100 change, there's nothing to suggest that this will happen, unfortunately, with @Jammer_Volts highlighting that Google posted a job ad recently for an "anti-scraper" role within the Search team. This, combined with the statement from Google, gives us pretty much everything we need to know. More details on the statement from Google and the link to my original article within the comments that gives the full breakdown of the situation, if you need a reference to pass on to your clients.