Google Quietly Made the Web 90% Smaller for AI: Have you recently tried to view more than ten pages of Google search results? If so, you’ve likely hit a new wall. In a recent update, Google has eliminated the popular num=100 search parameter, capping all queries at a firm 10-page limit. So, why did Google make this change, and what does it mean for you? Let’s dive right in!
- The Technical Change That Shook the Internet
- The Impact? Internet just got smaller
- How the num=100 Parameter Actually Worked
- Implications for Startups and Web Discovery
- What does it mean for us?
- The Spiritual Library Unfolded
- FAQs
- 1. What major search change did Google make recently?
- 2. Why is this change significant for Artificial Intelligence?
- 3. How does this update affect startups and new websites?
- 4. What was the primary benefit of the num=100 parameter?
- 5. What does it mean that the web is “90% smaller”?
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The Technical Change That Shook the Internet
In a move that went largely unnoticed by the public, Google made a subtle change in September 2024 that effectively shrank the visible internet for artificial intelligence by an astonishing 90%. By discontinuing a simple search parameter known as “&num=100,” the tech giant has fundamentally altered the flow of information online, creating a crisis for the SEO industry and starving the AI models that increasingly shape our world.
The Impact? Internet just got smaller
Large language models from companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Perplexity depend on the vastness of Google’s index to train their systems. They thrive on the “long tail” of those niche pages beyond the top 10 results to build a comprehensive understanding of the world. By cutting off this firehose of information, Google effectively made the web 90% smaller for these systems.
The impact could be easily noticed. An estimated 88% of websites saw their impressions plummet, as any page ranking beyond the top 10 was rendered invisible to AI crawlers. This digital blackout was particularly damaging for platforms like Reddit; its vast trove of human conversation, once a key source for training AI, was suddenly cut off from the learning pipeline.
The result is a web that has become significantly shallower and it’s not just for us, but for the artificial intelligence that increasingly shapes our world in this modern day.
How the num=100 Parameter Actually Worked
The technical implementation of num=100 was elegantly simple but powerful. When appended to a search URL, it instructed Google’s servers to return up to 100 organic results in a single response. This meant that instead of seeing just positions 1-10, users could view rankings through position 100, encompassing the entire first page and nine additional pages of results.
For automated systems, this represented a 10x efficiency gain in data collection. A single HTTP request could capture comprehensive ranking data that would otherwise require multiple paginated calls, each introducing latency, potential rate limiting, and increased infrastructure costs. The parameter essentially provided a wholesale access point to Google’s search index that made large-scale analysis economically viable.
Also Read: Google to Merge Android and ChromeOS into One OS
Then, one day, Google simply turned it off. The buffet was closed, and the cost of gathering the same data skyrocketed by 1000%, as what once took a single request now required ten.
Implications for Startups and Web Discovery
The Organic Discovery Crisis
For startups and emerging businesses, Google’s change represents a fundamental shift in how new websites can achieve visibility. Previously, even if a site couldn’t crack the top 10 results immediately, it could still gain exposure through positions 11-100, particularly for long-tail keywords and niche queries.
Now, the digital landscape increasingly favors established, high-authority websites that can secure top 10 positions. This creates a “rich get richer” dynamic where established brands capture even more of the available visibility, while new entrants face higher barriers to organic discovery.
The Distribution Challenge
The change exacerbates what venture capitalists and startup advisors call the “distribution problem”. Building a great product is no longer sufficient—companies must now “crack distribution” before they can achieve meaningful organic visibility. This shift potentially favors startups with substantial marketing budgets or existing brand recognition over innovative but under-funded competitors.
What does it mean for us?
For years, we’ve been guided by a core promise of the internet that quality always wins, which is true indeed but there’s a catch!
We believed that if you built something valuable, an audience would naturally find its way to you. This is the internet’s founding myth, a story many of us, especially in tech, told ourselves. But it was never the full story. What we perceived as organic discovery was, in fact, algorithmic curation.
The entire narrative of a digital meritocracy wasn’t based on reality, but on our collective inability to see the machinery of search working behind the curtain.
Now overnight, AI systems went from seeing 100 sources to seeing 10. So that basically raises a big red flag for the websites not ranking in the top 10 pages. They’re basically gone from the internet, completely invisible from the radar.
The Spiritual Library Unfolded
Similar to how AI is now completely oblivious to 90% of the content on the web. The story is more or less the same with us while finding the answers to our spiritual and philosophical curiosities.
Saint Rampal Ji is the only Tatvadarshi Saint who delivers spiritual discourses by providing evidence from our Holy books & scriptures and has proved that Lord Kabir is the Supreme Almighty God, testifying this fact from the Holy books of all religions.
Must Watch this Video on the Creation of the Universe by him which unfolds the secrets which were completely unknown to us till date! 🔽
FAQs
1. What major search change did Google make recently?
Answer: Google discontinued the “&num=100” search parameter. This tool allowed users and automated systems to view up to 100 search results on a single page, but now all searches are capped at the default 10-page limit.
2. Why is this change significant for Artificial Intelligence?
Answer: AI models, especially LLMs, relied on the num=100 parameter to efficiently gather vast amounts of training data from beyond the first page of results. By removing it, Google has effectively cut off 90% of this easily accessible information, potentially making AI models shallower.
3. How does this update affect startups and new websites?
Answer: It creates a major hurdle for organic discovery. New websites that previously gained exposure by ranking on pages 2-10 are now largely invisible to crawlers and deep searches, creating a “rich get richer” dynamic that favors established, high-authority sites.
4. What was the primary benefit of the num=100 parameter?
Answer: Its main benefit was efficiency, especially for data collection. It allowed SEOs and AI systems to capture 100 results with a single request, a 10x efficiency gain that made large-scale analysis economically viable.
5. What does it mean that the web is “90% smaller”?
Answer: This refers to the visible web for automated systems. Since AI crawlers can no longer easily access results beyond the first page (the top 10%), they are now effectively blind to the other 90% of search results that make up the “long tail” of the internet.
