A Google Search bug from this morning led to the search results being overwhelmed with just ads. This is obviously a Google Search serving bug where Google had a glitch and was unable to serve the proper amount of organic/free results.
In fact, we've had this issue a number of times before - as recently as a couple of years ago.
But I woke up this morning to a number of complaints about this from all over the world. Note, I was unable to replicate this in New York this morning.
Some believe this bug has to do with the 100 results feature going away but I highly doubt that.
Here are some of those complaints:
@rustybrick @JohnMu : how many Ads is too many?
— Rankify (@Rankify) September 17, 2025
These Serps are full of Ads pic.twitter.com/o85oXm1Uil
Looks like a bug — the page is almost completely filled with ads, with only a few organic results showing @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/QCFonmYXqD
— Sachin Patel (@SachuPatel53124) September 17, 2025
This is a new record: 22 Google Ads on a single SERP:
— SEO Südwest (@SEO_Suedwest) September 17, 2025
FYI @rustybrick pic.twitter.com/su6B6UEgKr
Those are just some of the complaints.
It seems this Google Search ads serving bug was from around 1am ET until 6am ET this morning but I was unable to replicate it.
Forum discussion at threads above.
Update: Google's Ginny Marvin confirmed this was a bug, she wrote on LinkedIn on September 22d:
This was a bug that affected a very small percentage of traffic. It has been resolved.
