Google's &num=100 parameter is gone: What this means for GEO

Are you like “wtf is &num=100 and why should I care”?

Digital marketers and the folks who employ them should absolutely take note.

If you’ve ever tracked keywords in any kind of SEO tool, you’ll know that in most cases, third-party tools will typically track the top 100 search results for a given search term by default.

They achieved this by incorporating a critical URL parameter known as &num=100. This string allowed trackers to crawl the top 100 results for a keyword at once instead of the default 10 results you'd normally see on typically Google SERPs.

What was the &num=100 parameter?

The &num=100 parameter was a simple URL string that SEO rank tracking tools relied on to measure search performance across the top 100 results with a single API request. For years, thousands of SEO tools from industry giants like Semrush and Ahrefs to smaller specialized platforms built their entire data collection frameworks around this parameter.

One API call could capture comprehensive SERP data for positions 1-100, giving SEO professionals the competitive positioning insights they needed.

But now, with the parameter gone, API calls can only capture 10 results at a time (the default for SERPs).

Why is getting rid of &num=100 such a big deal?

The removal created three major problems for traditional SEO platforms:

1. Cost explosion: Infrastructure costs increased 10x overnight. What previously required one server request now demands ten, multiplying bandwidth, processing power, and API costs across the board.
2. Data gaps and outages: Major platforms experienced temporary data blackouts as their systems struggled to adapt. Rank tracking reports showed missing data, phantom rankings, and inconsistencies that made client reporting a nightmare.
3. Feature limitations: Some tools responded by reducing their tracking depth, moving from 100 positions to 50 or 20 to maintain cost efficiency.

Now’s the time to double down on investing in GEO

The &num=100 parameter removal is just the latest example of digital marketing monoliths disinvesting in the traditional SEO infrastructure in favor of a world where LLM search is dominant. It's Google's clear signal that digital marketers need to start optimizing for GEO performance and visibility.

GEO represents a fundamental shift from optimizing for search engine results pages to optimizing for generative AI responses. It's the difference between trying to rank #1 on Google and ensuring your content gets cited when ChatGPT, Perplexity, or Google's AI Overviews generate answers.

How to start optimizing for GEO right now

No, SEO isn’t dead. In fact, many core SEO principles can be applied to maximize your GEO strategy. Here are some proven ways to start optimizing right now: (let us know if any of this sounds familiar, SEO friends…)

Content structure

• Structure content into self-contained, semantically meaningful chunks that can stand alone as complete answers, using clear subheadings that match user queries like "What is X?" and "How does X work?".
• LLMs evaluate content at the passage level, making individual paragraphs independently citable. Implement consistent heading structures (H2, H3) and Q&A formatting—content with standardized structure is 40% more likely to be referenced by AI systems.
• Support this with AI-friendly schema markup including FAQPage, HowTo, Article, and Organization schemas, plus sameAs properties linking to authoritative sources like Wikipedia and Wikidata.

Consistent and uniform messaging

• Build consistent entity recognition and brand authority by maintaining uniform naming and messaging across all digital properties.
• Create pillar pages for major entities and secure mentions on high-authority platforms that LLMs frequently cite (Reddit and Quora are among the most referenced sources, while ChatGPT pulls nearly 48% of citations from Wikipedia).
• Focus on original, data-driven content with unique statistics and research that can't be found elsewhere, as LLMs favor verifiable data points over generic information.

Technical accessibility

• Ensure technical accessibility by allowing AI crawlers (GPTBot, Google-Extended, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) access through proper robots.txt configuration.
• Monitor your AI visibility across platforms using tools like Optimizely CMS, tracking both brand mentions and their context.
• Since AI search visitors convert 4.4x better than traditional organic visitors, optimize for fast loading times and positive user experience signals. Success requires moving beyond keyword optimization to focus on building authoritative presence across the information ecosystem that feeds these AI systems.

It's not too late to board the GEO train

While it might not seem like a monumental shift, removing one little string like &n=100 is a microcosm of a much larger picture: the old ways of measuring SEO and organic performance are dying out. It's become virtually pointless to track keyword movement at any position outside of the top 10, and it might even cost you an arm and a leg.

The good news is that fundamental SEO translates very well to optimizing for generative engines. So, if you already had a solid SEO strategy in place, you'll likely also have solid GEO results.

The SEO professionals who understand this shift are already adapting. They're moving beyond rank tracking toward comprehensive user experience optimization. They're implementing GEO strategies that ensure their content gets cited in AI responses. They're building content that satisfies user intent so completely that people don't need to return to Google for additional searches.