Google &num= and Altering SERP lengths in Moz Professional

Just about each web optimization device is powered by scraped search outcomes. With the intention to get extra perception from every scrape—and thus hold prices down for finish customers—instruments typically use this parameter to pressure prolonged search outcomes on the primary web page, as an alternative of the usually 10 common natural outcomes a person would see by default. Moz Professional, for instance, has for a very long time standardized on &num=50 – so 5 “pages” of outcomes per scrape.

This parameter had really been deprecated for a few years, however continued to be unofficially supported. In mid-September, it began to slowly cease working, forcing web optimization instruments to hunt various strategies. Some instruments–together with Moz and STAT–ready another we name “stitching”, the place we piece collectively a sequence of paginated outcomes, 10 at a time, into one longer set of outcomes. There are numerous difficulties with this strategy, a lot of which could be mitigated or prevented, however the principle implication is price, which finally ends up being considerably increased, to the purpose of being unsustainable in lots of circumstances.

This must also be seen within the context of SERP knowledge prices typically rising in recent times, as instruments are pressured to imitate actual browsers increasingly more carefully in an effort to get correct, consultant rankings.