Google Experiments With Restricting Results Per Page

Bartek — Tue, 16 Sep 2025 10:28:58 +0000

Intro

Google has started testing yet another groundbreaking change to how the results are served. This time, the affected area is the number of results returned in a single search. Those experienced with Google SERPs know that you can get up to 100 results in a single search, but this seems to potentially be a thing of the past. What does it mean? I'll try to explain.

Background

At SerpApi, we support declaring the number of results in our Google Search API with the num parameter. It ranges from 10 (the default) up to 100 results in a single search. Lately, we have noticed a significant change in the parameter’s behavior.

The first time we noticed some inconsistencies dates back to early 2023. You can check our Public Roadmap thread discussion for reference. Initially, the inconsistencies were not very prevalent, and you could still consistently get 100 results in a single search if you wished to. This changed at the beginning of 2025, when one of our engineers noticed more and more queries ignoring the num parameter. This happened specifically with certain types of searches including the knowledge_graph. We also made a note about this in our documentation.

This time, though, it looks like the change is even more significant, and Google is much more aggressive in its attempt to limit the output to the default 10 results.

What actually happened?

Lately, the number of results returned with the num parameter has been very inconsistent, which you can observe in our engineer's benchmarks. At this point, it was clear that something bigger was happening, as this did not look like some random variability we had observed in the past.

Currently, more often than not, you'll get 10 organic_results despite attempting to get 100. You can test it for yourself using our Playground.

Does that mean you can't get 100 or more results from a Google search? Not at all. You can, of course, still get there with pagination, but this creates more challenges and generates additional costs.

Who's affected?

While you might not notice a huge difference in your day-to-day Google searching, there are certainly groups of people whose work will be greatly affected:

SEO - oftentimes, SEO experts rely on getting as many results as possible in as few searches as they can. This change makes it harder to analyze results quickly at scale and requires them to paginate.
Developers/API users - this is another group of people who might be upset with the change, as the costs of the same output via API are now significantly higher with pagination.
So are there any positives in this change? Actually, yes! API calls with the num parameter have historically been more prone to CAPTCHA challenges, so this change can potentially improve the overall performance of an API.

Outro

While this is not an official change yet, Google has a long track record of making it harder to scrape its search results, and this seems to be the latest step in that direction. While the change is disruptive and inconvenient for many, it also challenges us to adapt. We're experts in that, and we are always committed to delivering the best scraping services possible.

Want to try SerpApi yourself? Get 250 free searches by signing up! Feel free to also reach out to us with any questions or concerns through the chat or at contact@serpapi.com.

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How Google is shifting away from search by image in favor of Google Lens

Bartek — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 11:10:27 +0000

Earlier this month, Google made a significant change indicating moving away from search by image, also known as Google Reverse Image Search, in favor of Google Lens. This came as a surprise to many, but we've been noticing a gradual shift towards the Lens engine for quite some time.

First signs of the shift.

In March 2022, Chrome users noticed a major change. The default right-click "Search image with Google" has been replaced with "Search with Google Lens".

Default behavior before March 2022

Default behavior starting March 2022

Although this change altered the way people could search the images via Google, you could still disable this through Chrome flags and revert to the previous way of performing image searches.

You could disable Google Lens right-click search

Recent Google Lens changes.

At the beginning of the year, Google rolled out a new layout for Google Lens, which was potentially the biggest indication that they want to focus on this engine fully, and because of that, will likely get rid of the search by image at some point.

At SerpApi, after users reported that the Lens API was not working as intended, we swiftly rolled out the update, which brought back the API with features similar to the previous layout. You can check the whole conversation on our Public Roadmap.

Google Lens as the default image search.

This was not the end of the changes Google planned for its users. In February 2025, they changed the search by image option to always redirect to the Google Lens output. You can still disable the Google Lens right-click option via Chrome flags, but it no longer matters, as both options now return the same output.

Results of the "Search image with Google" right-click option

Of course, many people were justifiably upset with the change, as the data returned in Google Lens is different than with the old reverse image search engine, and a lot of people relied on the latter with their use cases.

Alternatives to Google reverse image search.

At SerpApi, we still offer Google Reverse Image Search API. We initially thought the search by image was deprecated entirely, but after doing some digging we discovered that there is still a way to access the endpoint and have the API work for our users. However, having our users' best interests in mind, we offer alternate solutions in case Google's reverse image search is removed one day:

While the first option is well-known and recognized as a very useful tool in many use cases (even more now that it has been a direct replacement for Google Reverse Image Search API), the second one is more niche but perhaps more reflective of a Google Reverse Image Search engine.

We are also actively working on introducing new features, mainly for Google Lens. You can find the complete list on our Public Roadmap, but I'm listing a few for your convenience:

If any of these look interesting or useful to your use case, feel free to follow up in the appropriate thread or let us know via chat at serpapi.com or through email at contact@serpapi.com. We'll do our best to implement the features as soon as possible.

Why SerpApi?

We provide the most diverse range of APIs out there—and we're constantly expanding. Transparency is important to us, which is why we have a Public Roadmap where you can explore upcoming features, track bug fixes, and even request new APIs! If your request aligns with our mission of scraping all search engines, we'll do our best to make it happen.
We also know that performance matters. That's why we offer powerful features to improve latency drastically:

Want to see if our APIs are the right fit for you? Test them out for free in our Playground!

Contact us!

If you have any questions or would like to discuss any issues or matters, feel free to contact our team at contact@serpapi.com. We'll be more than happy to assist you and answer all of your questions!

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