Some of our customers will have noticed that certain reports, particularly Local Rank Tracker and Local Search Grid, have been slower to run recently, with some taking longer than usual to complete.
We know these delays have caused some frustration and concern, so we wanted to address that. Trust is hugely important to us, and the way we maintain and build it is by being clear and honest about the issues we face. So here is a detailed explanation of what’s going on.
What’s happening
To show you where you rank, we collect results directly from Google searches, the same results your customers see. In recent months, Google has significantly stepped up its efforts to block automated access to its search results by introducing a variety of anti-scraping approaches:
- Enhanced identification of non-human sessions and searches
- More sensitive captcha triggers that require solving
- Introducing redirects in result URLs to mask identity of sites and pages shown in results (added /goto links rather than actual page url in the results)
- Removing the ability to get 100 results on each page, requiring 10 page requests rather than just 1 (this happened back in Sept, 2025)
The impact of these changes makes the retrieval of search results and data from Google more difficult. Getting around them requires additional attempts and extra steps that make the process less reliable, slower, and ultimately more expensive to deliver the data that marketers and businesses rely on.
We’ve adapted to changes like this many times over the 17 years we’ve been building BrightLocal, and we’ve found a viable solution every time.
What’s different now is the scale and frequency of the changes Google is making. And we expect that there will be more to follow in the coming weeks and months. I explain why that is below.
Before I do, I want to be clear that this is not a BrightLocal-specific problem. Every platform that reports on Google rankings collects data in a similar way and is facing the same challenge right now, as you can see in recent LinkedIn posts from Ahrefs and SEMrush.
Neither is it just an SEO/marketing platform issue. Businesses in other industries that depend on Google data are affected too. This includes e-commerce companies monitoring competitor prices, travel and hospitality services tracking rates and availability, and jobs and property portals monitoring how their listings appear.
Why is Google ramping up its anti-scraping tactics now?
The short answer to that question is AI. Platforms like ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok rely on Google’s search data in two ways:
- as a raw material for training their underlying models,
- and to retrieve live, fresh results when answering questions.
That puts them in direct competition with Google. In response, Google is working much harder to stop automated systems from accessing its results at scale. SEO platforms like BrightLocal use similar techniques to collect ranking data, so we’re caught in the crossfire.
How we’re responding right now
Keeping this data flowing is one of our highest priorities, and a significant amount of our engineering effort is focused on it.
We currently have this in hand, and you don’t need to worry about it. Yes the costs of getting this data are increasing, but we are absorbing these and, as I write, we don’t have plans to pass them on.
In terms of the specific actions that we’re pursuing to solve these issues, here’s where we’re currently focused:
- Using multiple partners and routes to the data. We work with a range of data partners and use a very distributed collection system, so we’re never dependent on a single route to Google’s results. When one route slows down, others keep your reports running.
- We’re continuously adapting rather than relying on a one-off fix. We monitor Google’s blocking measures daily and develop new solutions and workarounds as they change. Google evolves its defenses regularly, so we evolve our approach just as regularly. This is exactly the work we’ve done for 17 years; the difference now is the intensity, and we’ve scaled our effort to match it.
We’re not sitting on our hands on this. We know how much you rely on this data, and we’re putting in the work needed to keep providing it.
If you have any further questions or concerns right now, please get in contact with the BrightLocal support team.
Where we’re taking BrightLocal adds even more value for your business
At the same time, this challenge reinforces a direction we were already heading in: building a platform that delivers even more value to you, beyond just rank tracking
Rankings are very valuable to marketers because you often see movement in rankings before you see changes in leads or revenue, which makes them a fast, early indicator of whether your work is paying off. But rankings are one data source among many, and the measures that matter most are leads, customers, and revenue. A true picture of your marketing performance needs more than any single source can provide.
Extending and broadening your marketing data
We are actively working to extend and broaden the data we bring together in the platform, giving you a much more complete view of marketing performance. Expect to see Google Search Console integration, deeper insights from GA4, and expanded coverage of AI platforms through our recently released Local AI Visibility Tracker, which shows your visibility on ChatGPT today, with Claude and Gemini to follow.
Detailed insights and analysis
On top of that data, we’re developing a powerful insight and analysis layer that identifies and recommends the priority actions your business should take. What makes this possible is the knowledge and understanding of search marketing we’ve built up over 17 years, working with over 10,000 agencies, and providing marketing services to hundreds of agencies and local businesses
Years of building local SEO strategies and putting them into practice have taught us a lot. We’re bringing that experience into BrightLocal, so you get specific, practical recommendations grounded in what we know works. This moves us from telling you what’s going on to telling you what it means, and what to do about it to drive growth.
From data to actions and automation
And the step beyond that is helping you act fast on those recommendations through greater automation and integration. You’ll be able to act on our recommendations quickly, or instruct BrightLocal to carry them out on your behalf. We take on the heavy lifting, you get the data behind every recommendation, and clear approval gates mean you always understand, direct, and approve the actions we take.
What you can expect in the short to medium term
To be clear about the short to medium term, some reports may continue to run slower than normal while this situation plays out. When they do complete, the data in them is as reliable as ever; these delays affect how quickly your reports run, not the quality of what’s in them.
We’ve worked through big changes from Google before, and while these ones are more challenging than most, we’re confident we’ll do so again. My team and I are working hard to keep the platform running at full strength, and we’ll keep you updated if anything changes materially.
If you have any further questions or concerns, please get in contact with the BrightLocal support team. You can also message me directly on LinkedIn if you want to discuss this further or raise any concerns with me personally.
