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SerpApi vs Google and the Future of SEO

By Kessler West

Published May 14, 2026

Updated May 15, 2026

9 minute read

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By Kessler West

SEO and content marketing specialist who started working in the field in 2011. I love all things content, search engines, web accessibility, design, tech, and AI.

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Google's copyright claims would criminalize standard SEO practices

Google apparently hates search data access

Don't build the search infrastructure Google abandoned, I guess

Will Google's legal campaign kill $100+ billion in SEO services?

Google's "fake searches" claims

Three potential outcomes for the SEO industry

References

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Google’s December 2025 lawsuit against SerpApi demands $2.8 million in damages and a permanent injunction that would shut down SerpApi’s core business model.

The 13-page complaint alleges terms of service violations and argues that automated access to public search results constitutes federal copyright infringement.

This case will determine whether competitive analysis remains possible or becomes legally prohibited.

Depending on the results, this case could reshape how the entire SEO industry operates. If successful, it establishes precedent that third-party search data access — the basis for most SEO research as we know it — violates federal copyright law.

Google’s copyright claims would criminalize standard SEO practices

Google alleges that SerpApi operates a "parasitic business model" that generates millions of fake search queries to extract and redistribute Google’s search results. The complaint details how SerpApi uses residential proxy networks, browser automation, CAPTCHA-solving services, and other means to circumvent Google’s bot detection systems. Google claims search results pages (SERPs) are copyrightable works, and SerpApi’s extraction methods violate the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s anti-circumvention provisions.

SerpApi responded with a motion to dismiss in February 2026, arguing that Google misuses copyright law to stifle legitimate competition in the SEO tools market. Their core argument is that search results are factual information that cannot be copyrighted, and providing API access to publicly available search data serves legitimate business purposes.

SerpApi’s legal team contends that Google’s lawsuit represents "an unprecedented expansion of copyright law" that would give search engines monopolistic control over access to information that users can freely view in browsers.

For the last few years, Google has been degrading third-party access to search data. The removal of the num=100 parameter meant SEO tools could no longer retrieve full SERP data in single requests. API rate limits tightened, and custom Search JSON API access became more restrictive.

Google now uses federal copyright law as a weapon against companies that provide search data access. Google’s official blog post on the subject frames this as protecting "the integrity of our services and the trust of our users," but the practical effect establishes legal precedent that could eliminate third-party search data providers entirely. If Google gets its way, it will create a legal environment that makes any automated search result access legally risky.

This lawsuit also aims to protect Google’s search results as proprietary training data for its own AI models, while preventing competitors from accessing the same information. SerpApi’s response brief explicitly argues that Google’s real motivation is maintaining monopolistic control over search data.

Pretty spicy.

Google apparently hates search data access

Google has taken a number of measures, especially in the last few years, to keep people on Google Dot Com for longer than we used to stay. SEO professionals have felt the effects for sure: The first page used to be a reliably 10 results, and now many queries show only 6-8 non-YouTube links (no source linked here — feel free to perform a search and see for yourself). AI Overviews, People Also Ask, Featured Snippets, you name it. But that’s only what’s happened on the front end.

Google has also enacted a strategy of methodical destruction of legitimate data access channels. A while ago, Google Developers documentation announced that the Custom Search Site Restricted JSON API would cease serving traffic on January 8, 2025, forcing customers to transition to Google Cloud’s paid enterprise solutions.

Google pulled the plug on free API access that thousands of developers had built their businesses around, offering only expensive enterprise alternatives that priced out smaller SEO agencies and independent tool builders.

The...