Google appears to be blocking scrapers and rank trackers harder

Rank-tracking and third-party tracking tools that scrape Google Search results are reporting sharply reduced success since around September 13, 2026, according to Search Engine Roundtable. Nozzle, one of the affected vendors, said roughly 80 percent of its attempts to pull data from Google Search were being blocked. The pattern coincides with Google updates the site tracked on September 4, 12 and 15, though Google has not confirmed any change aimed at scrapers.

What vendors are reporting#

Nozzle’s Derek Perkins said the majority of his tool’s attempts to scrape data from Google Search have been blocked, putting the drop at around 80 percent. DataForSEO reported similar blocking. Sistrix posted a status update saying “Google has made further changes to the way search results are delivered” and that its own data collection was running at a reduced rate as of September 16, 2026. Sistrix’s Steve Paine said Google has been changing how it delivers search results for about a year, currently at a very high pace.

Not every vendor reports the same hit. Ahrefs and Semrush both said they were still able to scrape Google Search, with Semrush running slower rather than blocked outright. SEO consultant Glenn Gabe observed that Ahrefs was able to pick up recovery data for sites while Sistrix lagged well behind on the same events, a sign the blocking is not landing the same way across every tool.

How reliable is this signal#

Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz cautioned that something may be off with the data scraping from these tools rather than assuming Google has deliberately tightened access, and that the vendors reporting drops might simply be wrong about the cause. None of the affected companies have received or shared confirmation from Google about a change targeting scrapers specifically, and the inconsistency between tools such as Ahrefs and Sistrix supports treating this as an observed pattern rather than a confirmed policy shift.

Why we care#

Rank trackers, AI search monitoring tools and other third-party scrapers are how much of the industry measures ranking movement and AI Overview presence when Google’s own tools do not cover the same ground. If access to Google Search keeps degrading for these tools, site owners lose a chunk of the visibility data they rely on day to day, and any tool-reported ranking swing needs more scrutiny about whether it reflects real movement or a scraping gap.