🕵️‍♀️ The Curious Case of &num=100 — Why Your Website Traffic Suddenly Dropped
A Beginner-Friendly (and Fun) Guide to What Happened to Your SEO Data
“Wait… my impressions are down, my average position looks better, and Google says nothing’s wrong? What the heck is happening?!”
If you’ve been feeling this way since September 2025, you’re not alone. Across SEO dashboards, analytics reports, and marketing chats, people saw massive drops in impressions and assumed their sites were tanking.
But this time, it wasn’t a Google algorithm update or ranking penalty. It was something quieter, geekier, and sneaky: Google finally removed the “&num=100” parameter.
And that tiny bit of text — hidden in URLs — changed how a lot of SEO data works.
WHAT WAS &num=100 ANYWAY?
If you searched something like this:
https://www.google.com/search?q=best+coffee+maker&num=100
That “&num=100” told Google: “Please show me 100 search results at once instead of just 10.”
It was incredibly useful for years:
SEOs could analyze 100 results in one go.
Rank trackers could scrape deeper data.
Analysts could easily count impressions from positions 11–100.
In short, it was a handy shortcut — even if it was never “officially supported” by Google.
WHAT CHANGED
In mid-September 2025, SEO tools and dashboards started acting weird.
Impressions dropped.
Average positions improved.
Rank trackers stopped returning data after position 10.
After a bit of detective work, it turned out Google quietly stopped supporting “&num=100”.
Now, every search request only fetches around 10 results per page, no matter what you append.
Google later confirmed the parameter “is not formally supported.”
Translation: “We told you not to rely on that.”
WHY DID GOOGLE REMOVE IT?
Reduce scraping
SEO bots were fetching 100 results per request — multiplied across millions of queries. Removing it lowers bot load and protects their systems.
Make data more realistic
Most people don’t scroll past the first page of results. Deep “impressions” weren’t representing real user views anyway.
Simplify infrastructure
Smaller, more consistent result batches make Search faster and easier to maintain.
HOW IT AFFECTED YOUR DATA
After the change, everyone’s dashboards freaked out:
Impressions fell sharply (30% to 60%).
Average position suddenly looked better.
Rank trackers lost deep keyword data.
Many thought they were penalized.
But in truth, your traffic didn’t drop. The reporting method changed.
You just stopped seeing “ghost impressions” — results from pages where nobody actually clicked.
REAL-LIFE EXAMPLES
Jane’s Handmade Soap Store
Jane saw her impressions fall from 140K to 90K overnight and panicked.
But most of those impressions were from keywords where she ranked around #70.
Clicks stayed exactly the same — meaning nothing really changed.
Alex’s SEO Agency
Their tracking tool used &num=100 to grab all top 100 results in one request.
Now it has to make 10 requests to get the same data. Costs go up, data depth goes down, and they spent a week calming clients.
Morgan the Marketing Manager
Her boss asked, “Why are impressions down 40%?”
She replied, “Because Google stopped counting results no one ever saw.”
Her boss nodded — and bought her lunch.
WHAT YOU SHOULD DO NOW
Don’t panic about impressions.
They’re just measured differently now. Focus on clicks, CTR, and conversions.
Check your real metrics.
If your actual visits or leads didn’t drop, you’re fine.
Update your dashboards.
Annotate your reports around September 2025 as “num=100 removal.”
Ask your rank-tracking tool what changed.
Some now use paginated fetching to get 100 results again — but it’s slower and more expensive.
WHY THIS IS ACTUALLY GOOD NEWS
The “num=100” removal sounds scary, but it’s actually a cleanup move.
It filters out deep, useless data that no human ever interacted with.
It makes reports more accurate.
It stops SEO teams from obsessing over rankings that never mattered.
Cleaner data = smarter strategy.
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A SIMPLE BEFORE & AFTER SNAPSHOT
Before (&num=100 active):
Impressions: 140,000
Avg. Position: 34
Clicks: 5,100
CTR: 3.6%
After (&num=100 removed):
Impressions: 90,000
Avg. Position: 28
Clicks: 5,000
CTR: 5.5%
The numbers didn’t get worse — they got cleaner.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Q: Should I ignore impressions now?
A: Not ignore — just interpret differently. Look at clicks and CTR first.
Q: Can I still see rankings beyond the top 10?
A: Yes, but tools need to paginate or use APIs — it’s more work.
Q: Did Google do this for AI reasons?
A: Possibly. As AI-generated answers expand, Google wants faster and simpler SERPs.
Q: Is this a rankings drop?
A: No, it’s a data visibility change, not a performance change.
THE TAKEAWAY
The “num=100” saga is a perfect reminder that SEO metrics aren’t gospel — they’re tools, and tools evolve.
When Google changes something this deep, your job is to focus on what doesn’t change: real people seeing, sharing, and talking about your content.
Don’t measure deeper — create smarter.
❤️ FINAL THOUGHTS
Your traffic didn’t vanish — your dashboard just went on a diet.
The &num=100 removal means less noise, more clarity, and cleaner data for everyone.
It’s one of those rare times where less really is more.
And while the SEO world debates data depth, creators and brands using Postly are busy publishing, growing, and building communities that actually see their work.
So keep creating — and let Postly handle the posting part.
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