Published on September 22, 2025 by John Wheeler

Google and OpenAI feuding?

What just happened to my search console?

In June of 2025, ahrefs published an article coining the term “the great decoupling”, which was intended to illustrate an industry shift toward zero click search, with the notable upside of massively increased impressions
On September 12, 2025, Google began testing, and ultimately pushed out an update removing the functionality of the &num=100 parameter, which many traditional SEO tools used to track keyword ranks. In an instant, “the great decoupling” seemed to fall apart. Instead of increased impressions, it looks like impressions and clicks are both falling, and fast.
Over the weekend and into the following week, a number of SEO tools scrambled to patch their keyword ranking functionality (increasing their query costs 10 fold)

&num=100 is a search parameter that modifies the search engine results page (SERP) to show the top 100 results, rather than the traditional 10
This change of course disrupted a variety of automated tools that companies use to monitor their own search rankings. Semrush, ahrefs, moz, and other large scale SEO players were all affected.
The proven consequences are related to traditional search tools, but the when is suspect. As companies are vying for AI visibility, the timing of this notable change would hint that Google knows more than we do (like they usually do). Maybe the fight for default AI tool is heating up. Gemini as the incumbent in this AI iteration of search has the most to lose since Google still owns nearly 90% of global search according to global stats.

The timing gets a little more suspect, as Google, just 5 days after removing the &num=100 functionality, posted a job for an Engineering Analyst, Anti-scraper, Search, offering $174,000-$258,000 + bonus and equity. This reads as a play to take more ownership of search in general, as well as a play to begin defending against some novel scraping strategies potentially used by AI platforms like OpenAI.
The next day, OpenAI posted a Growth job focused on SEO, CRO, and Web Strategy, seemingly in a direct response, offering $265,000 + equity (plus the opportunity to work on one of the fastest adopted pieces of software in history: ChatGPT).
To me, it looks like OpenAI is taking some offense to the 90% search ownership statistic that frequently gets thrown around relating to Google, and Google is digging a great big moat around their search castle, shoring up their defenses.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire: this rivalry is far from a clear victor, and the competition will only heat up more as the search landscape continues to change
Expect more moves around SEO, AEO, scraping restrictions, and AI-driven traffic strategies.
The real question isn’t just who wins visibility, but who defines the future of how information is discovered. Google knows the delphic costs of search are too high, and OpenAI knows they can’t move the needle without traditional SEO strategies.

Written by John Wheeler