What changed
Bartek Marmolowski’s 16 September SerpApi account describes Google frequently returning around ten organic results despite a request for 100. Earlier inconsistencies existed, so this is best treated as the month a previously useful depth shortcut became unreliable at scale, rather than a perfectly timed global switch.
Evidence: Bartek Marmolowski: restricting results per page ↗
Commercial and workaround responses
DataForSEO’s revised 16 September announcement set billing by page from 19 September, with the first page at the base rate and additional pages at 0.75 times that rate. This is historical pricing, not a present-day quote. SerpApi’s later Fast Light workaround post now records that the API was discontinued after the underlying endpoint was restricted to three organic results.
Evidence: DataForSEO: revised pricing effective 19 September 2025 ↗ · Hilman Ramadhan: Google Fast Light workaround notice ↗
Our viewpoint: depth is a measurement boundary
A tool that checks fewer results can show fewer ranking keywords even when the website has not moved. To interpret a trend, you need comparable collection coverage on both sides of the date. Otherwise, a reduced search window may be mistaken for a reduced search footprint.
This is why the timeline includes num=100 before /goto. One concerns how many observations can be collected efficiently; the other concerns discovering the destination behind an observed result. They may compound operational work without being the same technical event.
What to ask a tracker
Confirm the delivered depth, refresh frequency and retry rules for each market and device. If a platform changes coverage, annotate the date and preserve a comparable top-10 cohort. Do not compare a former top-100 keyword count directly with a later shallower count.
A headline request multiplier is not automatically a customer price multiplier. Engineering choices, retries and commercial margins differ. Check the actual contract and bill before asserting that every provider passed the same cost to its customers.
Sources and verification
Checked 31 October 2026. We reviewed the public material linked below. We have not independently benchmarked the providers or tested live Google tokens for this article. A mutable status page may change after this check.
- Bartek Marmolowski: restricting results per page ↗
16 September 2025; provider tests describe a change with earlier inconsistencies.
- DataForSEO: revised pricing effective 19 September 2025 ↗
16 September announcement; replaces earlier proposed pricing details.
- Hilman Ramadhan: Google Fast Light workaround notice ↗
23 September 2025 post, later marked discontinued after its underlying endpoint was restricted.
