Google has quietly changed the way it displays search results, removing the option to view up to 100 results on a page and limiting it to just 10. The change, implemented without any official announcement, is expected to have major implications for the world of SEO, artificial intelligence training, and the digital visibility of websites.
According to Search Engine Land, about 88% of websites have already seen a significant drop in impressions, as results from positions 11 to 100 are no longer as visible to users. Platforms like Reddit, which often ranked in this range, have been hit hard with significant drops in traffic and engagement.
The change is not just affecting traditional SEOs, but also startups and AI developers, who rely on vast amounts of search data to train their algorithms. With this restriction, the open web has been narrowed, making it harder for new and less well-known sites to gain visibility.
Industry experts point out that this move could be an attempt by Google to limit the mass scraping of data and its use by other companies to train large language models (LLMs). However, for small businesses and content creators, this means an even tougher battle to win users’ attention.