What happened?: Recent technical modifications by Google are complicating the extraction of ranking data. The search engine is increasingly delivering deviating result lists, restricting the number of accessible results per query, truncating lists before position 100, and utilizing internal redirects that obscure actual target URLs.

User Impact: Delayed updates for keyword rankings may occur, particularly for positions outside the first search result page. The manual update-on-demand feature is currently disabled. Furthermore, metrics based on the top 100 results may show increased fluctuations or shorter hit lists. However, the top 10 rankings and the Visibility Index remain stable and reliable.

Actions Taken: We have implemented comprehensive, multi-level quality checks to immediately detect and filter out deviating search results. We are actively resolving internal redirect addresses to ensure accurate target URLs for organic rankings, and we have adapted the crawling infrastructure to prioritize the most essential data, such as first-page rankings.

Next Steps: We will continue to take the necessary steps and adapt the systems to guarantee long-term data quality and reliability. Further updates will be provided as these ongoing measures are implemented. Detailed information regarding the technical background of these changes can be found in the dedicated support article: https://www.sistrix.de/support/erfassung-google-rankings/

What happened?: For about a year now, Google has been stepping up its efforts to make the collection of search results harder. The biggest impact came from dropping the num=100 parameter in September 2025, but there have been smaller and larger changes to how search results are delivered almost every week since then. The latest one: Google routes clicks through redirect URLs of the form google.com/goto, so the target URL is no longer part of the search result itself and only becomes visible when the redirect is followed. We have been observing this on a small scale for several weeks. Google is now rolling it out broadly and confirmed the change to Search Engine Roundtable.

Impact on SISTRIX: The change affects all providers who collect and analyse search results. Without a countermeasure, affected results would carry no target domain and could not be attributed to a website. We already resolve these redirect URLs back to their real targets, and we are now scaling that up to cover all affected results. Every resolved URL costs an additional request against Google, which makes the collection of search results more complex and more expensive. As with num=100, it does not prevent it.

Our approach: We are scaling up the resolution of masked URLs and monitoring how far the rollout extends. While we do this, we expect update cycles to be somewhat slower than usual over the next few days. The data itself remains complete and comparable. Our goal is to be back to the usual rhythm shortly, and we will post an update here as things develop. As with the changes of the past months, this will remain an ongoing process rather than a one time fix. 

2026-09-01: Processing speeds for search result data have returned to normal. We are now successfully resolving masked Google redirect URLs without operational delays. Update cycles are functioning at their regular rhythm, and all data remains complete and fully comparable. We will continue monitoring the data collection pipeline to ensure ongoing stability.

2026-09-16: Google has made further changes to the way search results are delivered. As a result, our data collection is currently running at a reduced rate. We are adapting our processes accordingly and will provide further updates here.

2026-09-26: Google is currently returning incomplete or distorted search results in some cases. We have made sure that the Visibility Index and projects are based on verified data. New data for the Visibility Index is only published after it passes an additional quality check. Until the situation stabilises, fewer keywords than usual will be updated each day, so the Visibility Index and rankings will show less movement than normal. In projects, some rankings may show an older update date for the same reason. We will post an update here.

The processing of today’s daily data point for Germany (DE) is currently delayed. Consequently, today’s daily data for the German market is temporarily unavailable in the system. We are actively working to process and publish the missing data as quickly as possible. An update will be provided once the data is fully available.

2026-08-12: The processing delay affecting the daily data for Germany (DE) has been resolved. We have updated all metrics, and full data availability is restored.

Recent changes implemented by Google are currently affecting the standard frequency of daily keyword data updates. As a result, users may observe less movement and a reduced refresh rate within the daily keyword data. We are actively working on a resolution to adapt to these external changes and restore normal update frequencies. An update will be provided as soon as the issue is resolved.

2026-08-12: We have adjusted the tracking configuration to resolve the recent frequency issues. Daily updates for keyword data are now fully restored and running normally. Unfortunately, data from the affected days cannot be retroactively updated. All daily updates will proceed as scheduled moving forward.

The onpage crawler is currently experiencing processing delays due to ongoing maintenance work. This issue affects selected onpage projects, meaning that newly crawled data may be temporarily unavailable or missing. We are currently investigating whether this disruption has caused any permanent data loss for the impacted projects. We are actively working to minimize the consequences. A status update will be provided as soon as the investigation is complete and further information is available.

2026-07-06: We have successfully resolved the data processing issue following recent maintenance work. All systems are back to normal, though a very small number of Onpage projects may have experienced a loss of isolated data points during the disruption.

The tracking mechanism for specific SERP features has been fully restored after a temporary data anomaly over the past month. Current tracking is now operating with complete precision, and Visibility Index metrics have successfully returned to their correct, accurate baselines.

While the historical data for that specific one-month period will remain unchanged on the charts, all ongoing data collection is completely stable. We have successfully resolved the tracking issue and are upgrading internal validation procedures to ensure long-term data reliability.

We are currently experiencing severe performance issues that have caused the Toolbox to become temporarily unavailable. We are working under high pressure to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and restore full functionality. A further update will be provided here as soon as the system is fully operational again.

2026-06-12: The technical issues have been successfully resolved. All systems and features are fully operational again, and data can be accessed normally.

Daily visibility values for today (2026-05-13) are delayed. We are actively working on fixing the data processing.

Following changes to external search engine result retrieval, an adjustment has been made to the crawling depth for specific keyword segments. To ensure the continued accuracy of high-relevance data while managing increased infrastructure requirements, ranking depth is now prioritized based on search volume and relevance.

While all keywords influencing the Visibility Index and those tracked in Projects continue to be recorded up to position 100, other keywords may show a reduction in data depth. Users may observe a decline in the total number of Top 100 rankings, though Top 10 data and core metrics remain unaffected.

We are focusing our resources on maintaining the highest possible data quality for relevant search terms and the core metrics of the platform.

We are currently investigating a technical issue affecting the display of visibility trends for specific directories. As a result, visibility graphs for these directories may incorrectly show a sharp decline or significant drop in performance that does not reflect actual search engine rankings.
We are actively working on a fix to restore accurate data visualization. A further update will be provided once the issue is resolved.

2026-04-07: The issue is resolved by today. All visibility data has been restored and now accurately reflects search engine rankings.

We are currently investigating technical issues affecting the performance of the Onpage Crawler. Users may encounter significant delays or timeouts while initiating or processing crawls. We are actively working on a solution and will provide an update as soon as the issue is resolved.

2026-02-27: The issue is resolved by today.

Daily visibility values for today (2026-01-30) are delayed for DE mobile. We are actively working on fixing the data processing.

We are currently investigating an issue affecting the Onpage Crawler functionality.

Due to unplanned server maintenance, the Onpage Crawler is experiencing performance degradation or is temporarily unavailable.

Our team is actively working to stabilize the underlying server infrastructure and restore full functionality as quickly as possible. We will post an update here as soon as the issue is resolved.

2025-10-22: The issue causing performance degradation and temporary unavailability of the Onpage Crawler functionality has been resolved.

What happened?
Since this past weekend (September 13/14, 2025), Google no longer supports the parameter “num=100.” Until now, this parameter made it possible to retrieve the first 100 organic results of a search. From now on, even with the parameter set, Google only delivers the top 10 results. The change was introduced without prior notice and affects all providers who analyze search results. This has been confirmed by, among others, Search Engine Roundtable.

Impact on SISTRIX
We have also used this method to measure positions beyond the top 10. At the moment, we therefore only record the first 10 results. Positions 11 to 100 are no longer available, which leads to a visible drop in the number of ranking keywords for many domains and to rankings being marked as lost. For search engine traffic, however, this is usually irrelevant, since only a few users click on results beyond page 1.

Our approach
For all keywords that influence the SISTRIX Visibility Index, we will adapt our crawling for the next weeks to continue recording 100 organic positions. The same applies to keyword tracking in projects. For all other keywords, we will decide based on search volume and relevance how deeply we determine rankings. This way, we ensure that the value of the data remains in a reasonable balance with the additional costs.

2025-09-17: Daily visibility data for DE, AT, CH, IT, ES, FR, UK, US, SE and BR is available again. Update cycles are currently less frequent than before but we expect them to improve in the coming weeks.

2025-09-19: Daily visibility data for NL & PL as well as weekly rank tracking data for projects is also fixed.

2025-09-22: We will no longer update desktop SERP data in the future. As a result, the desktop visibility index will also be discontinued. Desktop SERPs can still be collected individually within projects.

We are currently investigating performance issues with the Onpage Crawler. Users may experience significant delays or timeouts when starting or running crawls. Our team is actively working on a fix and we will post an update as soon as the issue is resolved.

2025-08-22 13:40 We have resolved the performance issue affecting the Onpage Crawler. Projects are now being made available gradually and should be fully accessible again shortly. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Daily visibility values for today (2025-07-30) are delayed for desktop and mobile. We are actively working on fixing the data processing.

Currently, some of our Onpage projects are experiencing a bug in the keyword section. This issue might manifest for users as the page displaying “No results” or the history showing keywords without accompanying data.
We are actively working on resolving this issue. We apologize for any inconvenience caused and will inform you immediately once the problem has been fixed.

2025-07-23 08:45 The Onpage projects are now partially displaying keyword data again. Users may still experience incomplete data as historical data isn’t yet fully available, so ranking change data can’t be displayed. We are actively working on a full resolution and will provide an update as soon as the issue is completely fixed.

2025-07-24 08:02 We are continuing to work on resolving the issue affecting Onpage projects. We will provide an update as soon as the issue is resolved.

2025-07-25 08:25 We have identified the root cause of the issue affecting historic data in Onpage projects and expect to fully resolve the problem next week. We will provide an update as soon as the issue is resolved.

2025-07-30 08:25 We have identified and resolved the initial issue affecting data in Onpage projects. Data is now flowing into the project overview as expected. Due to the error, there is a gap in historical data between July 21st and July 30th. We are currently working to manually backfill this missing data. We will provide an update once this final step is complete and the issue is fully resolved.

2025-07-30 We have successfully resolved the issue affecting Onpage projects where data was intermittently missing. The root cause has been addressed, and the previously missing data has been manually restored. All Onpage projects should now display complete and accurate information.

Daily visibility values for today (2025-07-07) are delayed for some countries desktop and mobile. This affects desktop and mobile data. We are actively working on fixing the data processing.

We are currently experiencing an issue that prevents downloads from working as expected. Our developers are investigating and working on a solution.

2025-04-14 10:55: The download functionality has been fully restored. However, we are currently still seeing issues with access to legacy assets. This includes previously uploaded files, logos, avatars, and other media. Our engineering team is actively investigating the root cause and is working to restore full access as soon as possible.

2025-04-15: The issue is fixed by today.

In the past few days, Google has made changes to the localization of search results for some queries. As a result, we have also made adjustments today to continue providing nationwide, non-localized search results in the research features of SISTRIX. It may take a few days for these changes to become visible across the entire dataset.

SISTRIX is currently showing zero-value VI for some domains. This is a display error and not a data collection error.
We are currently working on a fix and will update this notice when the problem is solved.

2024-11-13: The issue is fixed.

Google recently adjusted the appearance of organic results for certain finance-related keywords. As a result, there were instances where we were unable to accurately identify organic results in all cases. This issue was limited to searches conducted on smartphones and only affected search terms that included specific financial integrations. We are currently working on improving the identification of these organic results and on importing the correct data into SISTRIX.

2024-10-10: The issue is fixed by today

Daily visibility values for today (2024-07-26) are delayed for desktop and mobile. We are actively working on fixing the data processing.

SISTRIX is currently experiencing service issues. We are actively working on fixing this.

Google has made some significant changes to the format of some organic results. In some cases we were unable to analyse the complete SERP. We are now working on a fix that will allow us to fully re-evaluate the SERP.

2024-05-22: The problem is fixed by today.

SISTRIX is currently experiencing service issues. We are actively working on fixing this.

Weekly visibility values for today (2024-04-15) are delayed for desktop and mobile. We are actively working on fixing the data processing.

Google has changed the layout of knowledge panels in SERPs. This is currently causing problems when processing search result pages in SISTRIX. We are actively working on fixing the error and will inform you here when the problem has been solved.

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2024-03-13 09:55: We have already implemented a solution to the problem and are currently in the process of implementing it in our systems. We will inform you here when the process is complete.

2024-03-15: The issue is fixed by today.

SISTRIX is currently experiencing service issues. We are actively working to fix a security certificate issue and you may see an error message until we fix the issue.

Between 11:49 and 12:10 there were problems with the availability of the SISTRIX Platform. The issues have been resolved, we are keeping an eye on the situation and making every effort to ensure that it does not occur again.

The data from the live visibility index for Germany, Austria, Sweden and Turkey is currently partially being displayed as showing levels that are too high. We are aware of the problem and are working on a solution.

2023-10-04 08:50: We continue to work on fixing the root cause of the problem. Until the final solution is implemented, the correct visibility data from Monday, 2023-10-02 will be displayed for the time being.

2023-10-04 16:00 Correct Live Visibility values are now being shown for Germany (Mobile). We expect the daily data point for tomorrow to be correct based on this as well.

2023-10-04 20:15 Correct Live Visibility values are now being shown for Austria (Mobile).

2023-10-05 13:25 Correct Live Visibility values are now being shown for Sweden (Mobile).

2023-10-05 20:20 Correct Live Visibility values are now being shown for Turkey (Mobile).

Daily visibility values for today (2023-09-30) are delayed for DE desktop. We are actively working on fixing the data processing.