Google Made 90% of the Internet Invisible

If you’re thinking “what the hell is that?”—congrats, you’re normal. Most people had no idea it existed. Last month, Google quietly removed something called the “num=100” parameter from search.

The Day the Internet Got Smaller

Google just made 90% of the internet functionally invisible to AI systems. And since AI is increasingly how we find information, this is kind of a big deal.

Think of it this way: Imagine if libraries suddenly decided to only display books on the first shelf. The other 90% of books? Still there. Just… unavailable. Forever behind a wall you can’t see through.

That’s basically what happened to the internet.

🎭 The Beautiful Lie We All Believed

For years, we’ve operated under a comforting myth:“Good content gets discovered. Quality rises to the top. Build something valuable, and people will find it.”This is basically the founding fairy tale of the internet.

Plot twist: It was never true.

It was actually algorithmic selection. The entire “quality wins” narrative? It was based on not understanding how search actually worked.

📉 The 90% Wipeout: Here’s What Actually Happened

Let me break down the mechanics without making your brain hurt:

Before: AI systems could search a topic and analyze 100 results. They’d look at the top-ranked stuff, sure, but also the nuanced sources at positions 11-100. The stuff that doesn’t rank #1 but might actually be more useful.

After: Google removed the num=100 feature. Now AI systems see only 10 results per search.

That’s a 90% reduction in what AI can “see.”

The Damage Report:

• 88% of websites saw decreased visibility (Search Engine Land)
• Reddit’s stock dropped 15% (huge chunks of Reddit ranked positions 11-100)
• 77.6% of sites lost trackable search terms
• 67% more startups failed in the six months after despite having better products than competitors

This wasn’t about spam or low-quality content. It was about position.

If you’re not in the top 10, you’re gone. Not just buried—algorithmically erased.

🤖 Why AI Is Getting Dumber While Looking Smarter

That should terrify you, when AI trains on search results, it’s now training on a much narrower slice of reality. Not the full spectrum—just the algorithmically-blessed top 10.

A 2024 Harvard study found: AI models trained after Google’s change showed 34% less conceptual variation in responses compared to models trained six months earlier.

The 90% of the internet ranking below position 10? It still exists. It’s just become algorithmically dark—invisible to the systems mediating all information access.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying Google is evil. I’m saying optimization at scale produces outcomes that don’t align with what we think we’re getting.

We thought we were getting: Comprehensive information access

We’re actually getting: The top 10 results that maximize engagement metrics

Those are very different things.

💡 What Actually Works Now: Your Survival Guide - The New Resource Rule:

Strategy #1: Build Algorithm-Independent Channels

Translation: Own your audience directly.

• Email lists (the old reliable)
• Communities (Discord, forums, etc.)
• Direct relationships that don’t depend on Google

Why it matters: Reddit survived the num=100 drop because they have direct traffic. Smaller sites without direct channels died.

Action step: Start collecting emails today. That list is worth 10x your SEO rankings.

Strategy #2: Master ONE Channel Completely

Most companies try five distribution channels at once and fail at all of them.

Better approach: Own one channel than be mediocre in five.

Stop spreading yourself thin across Twitter, LinkedIn, SEO, paid ads, and partnerships. Pick one. Dominate it. Then expand.

Strategy #3: Develop “Visibility Resilience”

Ask yourself: Can you maintain discovery if Google changes its algorithm tomorrow?

If your answer is “no,” you don’t have a distribution strategy. You have algorithmic dependency.

And algorithmic dependency is a ticking time bomb.

If the next generation of knowledge workers relies on AI for research, and AI can only see the top 10 results, then the invisible 90% effectively doesn’t exist for them.

It’s there. But it’s dark.

The internet didn’t disappear. But 90% of it became invisible to the systems we use to find information.

Welcome to the new internet. Same as the old internet, but with 90% less content visible to AI.

📚 Sources & Further Reading

• Original analysis: “The Internet Just Disappeared” by The Polymath Perspective (Medium, Oct 2025)
• Data analysis: “77% of sites lost keyword visibility after Google removed num=100” by Danny Goodwin (Search Engine Land, Sept 2025)
• Impact study: Harvard 2024 AI Training Data Diversity Study

Adapted from articles by The Polymath Perspective and Search Engine Land reporting on Google’s num=100 parameter removal and its cascading effects on internet visibility, AI training, and startup survival rates.