Google shuts down DataForSEO's API cost cut in five days

Google moved swiftly to block a technical workaround that DataForSEO implemented to circumvent restrictions on bulk search result access, shutting down the solution just five days after the company publicly announced an 80% cost reduction for its SERP API customers. The rapid response demonstrates the search giant's determination to protect its search infrastructure from data collection methods that bypass official channels.

DataForSEO had announced on October 18, 2025, that it found a method to retrieve 100 search results using just two crawls instead of 10, dramatically reducing operational costs. By October 25, the search giant had identified and blocked the workaround, forcing the company to revert to standard pagination methods. The announcement page subsequently disappeared from DataForSEO's website, returning a 404 error.

"Told you already! just took Google 5 days and they again blocked the workaround from dataforseo that enabled them to scrape 100 results with just 2 crawls," SEO consultant Gagan Ghotra reported on October 25, 2025, at 2:11 PM in a post on X.

The speed of the response effectively killed the enthusiasm generated by DataForSEO's announcement, which had attracted substantial attention from the SEO community with 268 reactions, 23 comments, and 15 reposts on LinkedIn.

Carl Hendy confirmed the blocking's immediate effect. "However, the Lite technology that enabled this improvement has been deprecated by Google as of today. As a result, we have reverted our data collection process to the standard pagination mechanism, where one page corresponds to 10 results," Hendy stated in a quoted message within Ghotra's post.

The blocking affected customer operations immediately. Fery Kaszoni reported spending an entire day modifying code in their SaaS platform to work around the blocking. "Spent all day today changing the code in our SAAS to work around this," Kaszoni commented 13 hours after Ghotra's blocking announcement.

DataForSEO's announcement page at dataforseo.com/update/meet-google-search-lite-serp-api now returns a 404 error, indicating the company removed the content from its website following the blocking. The page no longer exists online, completing the elimination of what had briefly appeared as a solution to industry-wide cost increases.

DataForSEO's COO Kateryna Shevchenko had disclosed the pricing changes in a LinkedIn post on October 18, detailing how full SERP coverage up to the top 100 results would now require significantly fewer requests. "We found a way where the full SERP coverage up to the top 100 results now requires just 2 crawls instead of 10, which means your costs for deeper data collection drop by nearly 80%," Shevchenko stated in the announcement posted 23 hours before the document capture date.

The pricing structure introduced specific rates for different priority levels. First-page requests with all SERP features at a depth of 10 results cost $0.0006 for standard priority queue, $0.0012 for high priority, and $0.002 for live queries. Each additional batch of up to 100 results carried charges of $0.00045 for standard, $0.0009 for high priority, and $0.0015 for live queries.

Cost calculations demonstrated the efficiency gains. Retrieving results at depth 10 cost $0.0006 for the first page with 10 results. A depth of 50 required $0.00105 covering the first page plus the next 40 results across two pages. Depth 100 maintained the same $0.00105 price point, collecting the first page plus 90 additional results in two requests. Depth 111 increased to $0.0015, encompassing the first page plus two additional batches totaling more than 100 results across three pages.

The company also previewed a single-call mode that would return 100 organic results, scheduled to roll out early the following week. Shevchenko emphasized this feature would charge per 100 results rather than per 10 as before, making it cost-effective for users requiring only ranking data. That feature never materialized due to the search giant's swift intervention.

These pricing changes addressed an industry-wide challenge that emerged on September 14, 2025, when the search giant discontinued its n=100 SERP parameter. This elimination forced SEO tools to make 10 separate requests instead of one to retrieve 100 search results, resulting in a tenfold cost increase for businesses dependent on comprehensive search result analysis. Semrush confirmed the significant operational impact, acknowledging that the modification multiplied operational costs by a factor of 10.

SEO consultant Gagan Ghotra had questioned the sustainability of DataForSEO's solution immediately after the announcement. In a post on X dated October 19, 2025, Ghotra predicted the search giant would respond. "Now as dataforseo publicly announced they managed to circumvent the effort from Google to block scraping - what if Google again change something to block whatever approach dataforseo is using," Ghotra wrote.

The search giant validated Ghotra's concerns with remarkable speed. Within six days of his warning and five days after DataForSEO's announcement, the blocking occurred. The prediction proved prescient as the technical workaround ceased functioning exactly as Ghotra had anticipated.

Kate Shevchenko, identifying herself by her first name in the thread, had acknowledged the inherent risk in the company's approach before the blocking occurred. "There is always a risk, but we take it. Paying x2 instead of x10 is worth the risk," Shevchenko responded on October 20 to Ghotra's initial concerns. The search giant's five-day response demonstrated that publicly announcing workarounds significantly increases the risk of rapid countermeasures.

User Klaas speculated about the technical implementation that was blocked. "1-10 and 11-100 for sure," Klaas commented 19 hours after the blocking report, suggesting the company had been using separate endpoints to retrieve results in batches.

The rapid blocking follows a consistent pattern. A competitor, SerpApi, encountered a significant technical obstacleapproximately three days before DataForSEO's announcement when the search giant restricted the company's Google Light Fast API to return only three organic search results. SerpApi had launched that endpoint as a solution to the September parameter elimination, providing access to 100 organic search results through a single request by focusing exclusively on organic results without rich features. The search giant blocked that workaround as well, demonstrating a systematic approach to eliminating technical circumvention attempts.

The pattern demonstrates the search giant's active monitoring of data access patterns that deviate from standard user behavior. The technical restrictions appear deliberate, with timing suggesting identification and blocking of workaround solutions within days of public disclosure. User ggennrich speculated on GitHub regarding SerpApi's approach, suggesting the company was "eating the cost with this API and doing 10 queries to get 100 results for organic only and eliminate the computer power required to parse the rest of the rich results."

The search giant's infrastructure can detect when companies implement technical solutions that circumvent intended restrictions. The five-day response to DataForSEO's announcement indicates automated monitoring systems that flag unusual access patterns or public discussions of workaround methods. Once identified, the platform can quickly modify its systems to close technical loopholes.

The search giant's protective measures extend beyond SERP access. The company blocked AI crawlers from major tech companies in August 2025. Legal action has also intensified, with one social platform filing a lawsuit on October 22, 2025, against SerpApi, Oxylabs, AWMProxy, and Perplexity AI for circumventing security measures to scrape platform data.

The elimination of bulk search result access compounds existing cost pressures on digital marketing teams. Marketing professionals experienced significant operational cost increases across advertising platforms throughout 2025. Google Ads costs rose 12.88% across all industries in the first quarter, with 87% of business sectors experiencing cost per click increases exceeding 40% in some cases.

DataForSEO had implemented the changes immediately upon announcement. "The changes are already live. To collect more results, simply increase the value of the 'depth' parameter in your Google Organic SERP API requests. Everything else is handled on our side," Shevchenko wrote in the original LinkedIn announcement. The confidence in the solution proved short-lived as the search giant moved to shut it down within five days.

The company's approach attempted to address the substantial cost increases facing SEO platforms and their customers. The industry has confronted mounting challenges throughout 2025 as the search giant implements various restrictions on data access. Microsoft reduced search API availability, with Bing Search APIs retired on August 11, 2025, and replacement services costing 40-483% more.

The search giant's swift response effectively killed the momentum DataForSEO had generated. The technical cat-and-mouse game between data providers and the platform raises questions about sustainable business models for SEO tools. Enterprise platforms serving large clients may absorb increased operational expenses more effectively than smaller providers targeting individual users or small businesses. Subscription pricing models across the SEO industry may require restructuring to accommodate higher data acquisition costs.

DataForSEO's announcement had attracted significant attention from the SEO community on LinkedIn. Industry professionals including Lily Ray, Vice President of SEO Strategy & Research, and multiple technical specialists engaged with the post. The announcement received 268 reactions, 23 comments, and 15 reposts. That enthusiasm dissipated rapidly once the blocking occurred, with the subsequent removal of the announcement page from DataForSEO's website completing the reversal.

The developments carry significant implications for marketing professionals who depend on comprehensive search result data for competitive intelligence and strategy development. Most click-through data concentrates in the top 10 search positions, with positions 11-20 representing opportunity identification rather than direct traffic sources. Organizations tracking large keyword portfolios face operational challenges as they evaluate whether deep ranking data justifies increased subscription costs.

The five-day blocking of DataForSEO's workaround demonstrates the search giant's commitment to protecting its search infrastructure from automated data collection. The swift elimination of the solution after public announcement suggests that transparency with customers carries significant risks when circumventing platform restrictions. Companies that publicly disclose technical workarounds face nearly immediate countermeasures.

Marketing teams must now recognize that any technical solutions circumventing official API restrictions lack durability once publicized. The pattern of rapid response to announced workarounds indicates that publicly promoted solutions face certain blocking. Companies developing alternative approaches face a difficult choice between transparency with customers and the risk of attracting immediate attention from platform protection systems. DataForSEO's experience demonstrates that the search giant can identify and eliminate workarounds faster than companies can build customer adoption, effectively killing enthusiasm before solutions gain traction.

Timeline

• September 14, 2025: Google eliminates n=100 SERP parameter, forcing SEO tools to make 10 separate requests instead of one for 100 results
• September 15, 2025: Semrush confirms significant operational impact from parameter elimination
• Early October 2025: SerpApi's workaround blocked as Google restricts Light Fast API to three results
• October 18, 2025: DataForSEO announces 80% cost reduction through technical solution requiring only 2 crawls for 100 results
• October 19, 2025: Gagan Ghotra questions sustainability of DataForSEO's publicly announced workaround
• October 20, 2025: Kate Shevchenko acknowledges risk but states cost savings justify the approach
• October 22, 2025: Reddit files lawsuit against SerpApi and others for circumventing security measures
• October 25, 2025: Google blocks DataForSEO's workaround five days after public announcement
• Following October 25: DataForSEO's announcement page returns 404 error, indicating removal from website

Summary

Who: DataForSEO, a search engine results page API provider led by COO Kateryna Shevchenko, attempted to reduce costs for customers following Google's elimination of bulk search result access.

What: The company announced an 80% cost reduction for its Google Organic SERP API by retrieving 100 results using two crawls instead of 10. Google blocked the technical workaround within five days of the public announcement on October 18, 2025.

When: DataForSEO announced the pricing changes on October 18, 2025, with the solution going live immediately. Google blocked the workaround by October 25, 2025, five days after the announcement.

Where: The announcement appeared on LinkedIn and attracted attention from the global SEO community. The technical restrictions affected DataForSEO's API infrastructure and customers using the service worldwide.

Why: DataForSEO developed the solution to address a 10-fold cost increase that resulted from Google eliminating its n=100 SERP parameter on September 14, 2025. Google blocked the workaround to protect its search infrastructure from automated data collection that circumvents official access methods. The incident demonstrates ongoing tensions between search platforms protecting their data and SEO tools requiring comprehensive search result information for legitimate business purposes.