Several SEO platforms and tools have reported that Google is returning altered or erroneous results when it detects that a query originates from automated crawling tools. This issue could be part of the search engine's efforts to limit the massive collection of data by AI systems. It's important to clarify that this "poisoning" doesn't affect searches performed by human users on Google, but rather the automated queries made by analytics platforms. According to data shared by the digital marketing and SEO platform Ahrefs, the extent of the distortion varies depending on the data provider, with between 5% and 20% of search results being affected. Meanwhile, the firm Nozzle recorded a peak where up to 43.5% of the SERPs analyzed in its samples showed signs of poisoning, while platforms like SEOmonitor and DemandSphere have estimated the error rate between 6% and 11%. At the moment, Google has not commented on the matter. How SEO Platforms Are Responding As Semrush, a brand visibility management platform, stated in a press release, this “SERP poisoning” is affecting data providers in the SEO field and manifests in two ways: Partially flawed results pages: At first glance, these SERPs appear to be normal pages, but scrolling down reveals results that only vaguely match the initial search. Completely irrelevant results pages: The results page is entirely flawed and displays results that do not match the query. A case documented by Semrush showed how a search in Brazil for a baby stroller ended up displaying dental equipment products simply because they shared the word “carrinho” (stroller). Major platforms have taken steps to mitigate the problem. Semrush has stated that its systems are capable of detecting “clearly invalid” results during collection and excluding them from its database. “Furthermore, we have adjusted our data sources based on their quality and added validation checks that flag potentially inaccurate results and recollect them. We continue to refine these processes as search engine behavior evolves,” the platform explains. Ahrefs, for its part, has stated that it already has “multiple filters to detect and reject anomalous results and request accurate replacements. We are also correcting any previous results that may have been affected.” Google’s Alleged Reasons Although Google has not issued any statement regarding this practice, the SEO community seems to agree that the main cause lies in measures against massive scraping. With the accelerated development of large language models, hundreds of companies are intensively crawling the web to collect data for artificial intelligence. In response, and to protect its infrastructure and the ownership of its index, Google allegedly “poisoned” the returned information, rendering the quality of the content captured by third parties unusable. When analyzing these suspicions, we can't help but recall Google's decision last year to disable the `&num=100` parameter in its search URLs. This change prevented external tracking services (such as SEO tools or AI) from extracting the top 100 results in a single query, forcing them to make ten separate requests for ten results each to obtain the same volume of data. With this precedent and the current alleged SERP poisoning, everything seems to indicate that the tech giant is seeking to reduce the load on its servers caused by massive crawling, limit large-scale data collection for AI systems, and steer the analytics industry toward a much more restricted collection model. How to avoid SEO panic If you manage SEO projects, the main recommendation is to remain calm in the face of unexpected ranking changes in your regular reports. Semrush advises comparing the data with that of Google Search Console, especially if you detect strange variations with respect to keywords unrelated to your pages. Likewise, both Semrush and Ahrefs (support@ahrefs.com) offer their users the possibility of contacting their support teams so that they can help them review the case.