Why your KickstartSEO Portal rankings may look a little odd this month

Google’s been tinkering again. Last week (September 2025), they quietly removed a parameter called &num=100 that allowed SEO tools to fetch the top 100 results from a search page in one go. Now, only 10 results at a time are available.

If you’ve logged into your KickstartSEO Portal this week and spotted some keywords suddenly showing as “100+,” you’ve seen the impact first-hand.

Background on &num=100

For years, the &num=100 parameter was an undocumented but widely used function for several purposes:

• Efficiency for rank trackers: SEO tools could gather up to 100 results in a single request.
• Deep-search analysis: Power users could quickly see the top 100 sites for a query.
• Search Console inflation: Automated fetching sometimes inflated impression counts for keywords ranking beyond page one.

The consequences of its removal

This update has caused disruption across the SEO industry:

• Impact on SEO tools
  • Increased costs: What once took one request now takes 10, raising server and bandwidth costs.
  • Disrupted services: Several platforms suffered outages or broken dashboards after the change.
  • Reduced depth: Some tools have limited keyword tracking to the top 20–50 to manage costs.
• Impact on Search Console data
  • Drop in impressions: Desktop impressions fell around 10–12 September 2025, as bots could no longer inflate data for positions 11–100.
  • Apparent rise in average position: Many sites now show an “improvement,” but it’s just cleaner reporting.
  • Cleaner data overall: Search Console now reflects real user behaviour more accurately.

Why Google did this

Google hasn’t issued a formal statement, but likely reasons include combating large-scale scraping, reducing server load from automated queries, and improving data quality in Search Console to match real user experience.

So, now what?

We’re looking at alternatives. Pulling the data 10 results at a time means a 10x cost to retrieve those top 100 rankings. We don’t want to do that, as we’d inevitably have to pass that cost on.

Instead, we’re testing other approaches to keep your reports consistent without driving up expenses. The goal is reliable data you can trust. Norman uses this same data when deciding which SEO actions to prioritise, so accuracy matters.

What replaced &num=100

Nothing. To go beyond the top 10, developers must now use pagination with the &start parameter. For example:

• &start=10 fetches results 11–20.
• &start=20 fetches results 21–30.

What this means for your Portal

• Keywords outside the top 10 may temporarily show as “100+.”
• Metrics that rely on full SERP data may show more fluctuation than usual.

To be clear: this does not mean your rankings have dropped. It’s a reporting issue while the dust settles.

How we’re responding

Every SEO tool worldwide is facing this. At KickstartSEO, we’ve already rolled out adjustments in the Portal to minimise disruption and will continue refining our process until ranking visibility is stable again.

What you should do now

• Don’t panic. These changes don’t mean your traffic has fallen.
• Be transparent with your team or stakeholders: explain that the reporting quirks are down to Google, not your performance.
• Focus on the big picture: most meaningful clicks happen within the first two pages of search results.

Staying the course

Search is always evolving, and part of our job as SEO Fitness Specialists is to handle technical turbulence so you can focus on growing your business.

We’ll keep you updated as things stabilise. In the meantime, your SEO fitness programme is still firmly on track.

And just to be crystal clear: your rankings themselves haven’t changed — only the way they’re reported.