Has Your Google Scraper Broken? Here’s What You Need to Know

Has Your Google Scraper Stopped Working? Here’s What You Need to Know

If your tools for scraping Google search results have suddenly stopped working, you’re not alone. On Thursday, January 15, 2025, Google made a sweeping change to how its search engine result pages (SERPs) operate. The change immediately sent ripples through the data extraction and SEO communities, with many scrambling to adapt.

Here’s the bottom line: Google now requires browser rendering to access its search results, a shift that significantly increases the technical complexity and cost of scraping.

What did Google do?

Google cracked down on the harvesting of SERP data by requiring Javascript to be enabled in order to display search results. For the average internet user, nothing changes. For companies that rely on extracted SERP data for any use case, this poses significant challenges.

What’s the impact for web scrapers?

Our technical teams estimate that without the proper tooling, it’s five to ten times more resource-intensive to scrape Google SERPs now that traditional scraping methods that relied on fetching raw HTML are no longer viable.

How to get your scraper back up again

If your Google scraper has stopped working, here’s how you can adapt:

1. Enable headless browser rendering: Switch to a headless browser setup to comply with Google’s new requirement for rendering search results. Tools like Puppeteer or Playwright can help simulate a browser environment. Keep in mind this will require significantly more computing resources, so plan for increased infrastructure costs.

2. Or, let Zyte API handle it for you: Consider using the Zyte API, which automatically handles browser rendering and adapts to changes like these. This lets you focus on your data without worrying about infrastructure or technical adjustments.

What’s Zyte’s status?

If you’re currently using Zyte API to collect this data and are affected by this change, we’re pleased to report that Zyte has deployed fixes to mitigate the issue.

In most cases, no changes are required from your side to resume normal operations. Our immediate priority has been to restore service reliability while keeping additional costs and workflow interruptions to a minimum.

Looking Ahead

Change is the only constant in web scraping, as websites evolve and adapt to new technologies.

Google’s latest update is a clear reminder of the need for tools that can keep pace with these shifts. When a website changes, Zyte API minimizes the adjustments needed, guaranteeing access and a swift return to business as usual—all with a simple switch of a flag.

With Zyte API, you’re equipped to handle such incidents effortlessly. Its flexible configurations, AI-powered adaptability, and humans-in-the-loop approach ensure you can charge ahead and tackle any possible challenges in web data collection.

Stay ahead of the curve and let Zyte API do the heavy lifting, so you can focus on what matters most: your business.

Need any help? Contact support here.