Google apparently made a big change to its system within the final 48 hours that’s impacting a number of search engine marketing instruments. The change seems to have blocked many scrapers and APIs, leading to an information blackout.
Information lags are being reported by customers of search engine marketing instruments together with SimilarWeb, Rank Ranger, SE Rating, ZipTie.dev, AlsoAsked and probably others.
What occurred. Shay Harel, senior director of SimilarWeb, an internet analytics and market intelligence platform, shared an announcement detailing what occurred with Barry Schwartz:
On the night time of January fifteenth, Google applied important modifications to how its programs deal with automated interactions. These updates briefly disrupted rank monitoring and SERP information options throughout the business, together with ours, as many current configurations have been rendered non-functional.
The modifications launched new necessities for interplay protocols, invalidating beforehand dependable strategies and inflicting widespread service interruptions. At Similarweb, we quickly tailored by figuring out the basis trigger and deploying updates inside 18 hours to revive full performance.
This replace additionally deprecated sure configurations, reminiscent of ads_mode: ON, which was generally used for analyzing paid outcomes. The shift to requiring extra dynamic session dealing with provides complexity and raises issues about potential depersonalization of outcomes. These modifications spotlight Google’s ongoing efforts to refine its ecosystem and introduce stricter controls.
The size of this occasion was unprecedented, even in comparison with main disruptions in 2018. It reinforces the significance of technical agility and innovation in delivering dependable information options for the search engine marketing business.
Tomek Rudzki, co-founder of ZipTie.dev, a Google AI Overviews monitoring device, additionally confirmed the difficulty on X:
- “We’ve noticed a lower (roughly 2 share factors) in AIO detection charges by way of Ziptie’s monitoring system. It appears Google is obstructing AIO checkers in a sensible means, far past conventional captchas. We’re in search of methods to enhance the AIO detection fee.”
Why we care. You probably depend on a few of these instruments to know whether or not your search engine marketing efforts are profitable – whether or not your purpose are serving to to drive visibility, conversions, income to your manufacturers and web sites. With out information, we’re blind. So examine your instruments to see if you’re impacted. Hopefully it’ll simply be momentary if you’re.
Some instruments unaffected. Some search engine marketing instruments appear to be unaffected by Google’s change, reminiscent of Semrush (disclosure: Search Engine Land is owned by Semrush), Sistrix, Monitorank, and Ahrefs.
Story growing. We’re reaching out to search engine marketing device suppliers and can replace this story with any extra information and reactions as we get them.
First noticed. Eric Mercier revealed seems to be the primary to have noticed this challenge and revealed this text (in Spanish) Google bloqueó las herramientas search engine marketing: el drama del 2025. I found his article by way of Natalia Witczyk’s LinkedIn put up.
JavaScript change. In the meantime, Google immediately instructed TechCrunch it’s now forcing customers to activate JavaScript to make use of Search. Google mentioned “fewer than .1%” of searches on Google are carried out by individuals who disable JavaScript. Additionally:
- “Enabling JavaScript permits us to higher shield our companies and customers from bots and evolving types of abuse and spam, and to offer probably the most related and up-to-date data.”
Is it simply coincidental timing that this assertion got here out following the information that many search engine marketing instruments went darkish?
Editor’s word. Initially, Semrush was listed as an organization that was impacted by this information outage, based mostly on social media posts. Nevertheless, a Semrush spokesperson instructed me:
- “On any given day, some customers could encounter bugs as a part of the conventional course of enterprise, however nothing uncommon has been recognized. Our product staff has verified this, and we aren’t seeing any widespread points.”
