Google Search confirms it does not support the results per page parameter

A week ago, Google disabled the ability to see 100 results per page by using a URL parameter in the Google Search URL bar. Since that change, rank-checking tools have become an absolute mess, and even Google’s own Search Console data has seen a significant drop in data.

Google finally replied to our questions on the removal of this feature, saying the URL parameter is not something they support.

Google’s statement. A Google spokesperson told us:

The use of this URL parameter is not something that we formally support.

What is Google not saying. Google did actually support this parameter for many many years, at least unofficially. But in 2018, Google removed the interface to tell Google how many results you want to show on the search results page. But the URL parameter method stayed and has worked through last week. Then it abruptly stopped working late Thursday night.

I asked Google if this is a bug, like we saw in 2013 or if this is a change in functionality. Google just responded with the above statement.

Google did not say why the change was made. Was it because Google was trying to prevent unauthorized scrapers from scraping its search results. Google terms of service have said for ages that this was against its terms of service.

Was it to stop OpenAI from using Google’s search results? I don’t know.

Can Google explain why it seems Search Console data is impacted? A massive number of sites are reporting losing a significant percentage of impression data after this change was made. Is it because that data was not real in the first place and bots caused a significant amount of inflation with Search Console data?

Again, we have a lot more questions that remain unanswered.

num=100 gone. But from reading Google’s statement, it seems like the num=100 parameter is no longer going to be supported.

Why we care. If you have been using that parameter, then you likely won’t be able to do that going forward. Your third party tools that track Google’s search results will have to adapt to handle this change, many have already sent out statements to customers about this. And Search Console data may end up being more accurate with real human data going forward.