Google feeds rank trackers fake results to block AI scraping

Google began blocking bulk search-results collection outright on September 13, 2026, then switched to serving pages with swapped-out results instead, according to research from rank-tracking vendor Nozzle. Analyzing 27.5 million SERPs collected across 49 countries, Nozzle found the share of pages missing more than half their usual top-10 sites rose from a 0.17% baseline to an 8.0% average afterward, peaking at 27.0% on September 29; most affected pages revert within three days. Nozzle says third-party rank trackers are “caught in” a countermeasure aimed at bulk AI-grounding scrapers, since both collect results pages the same way; social platforms including Reddit and Facebook are over-represented on the altered pages.