MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA — In a bold new step to defend its sacred SERPs, Google announced today it is hiring an “Anti-Scraping Czar”, a position tasked with hunting down rogue keyword trackers, scrapers, and anyone who so much as glances too hard at page two of results.
“Scrapers are the number-one threat to our business model,” said a visibly shaken Google spokesperson while clutching a laminated E-E-A-T diagram. “They steal our search results, which we’ve worked hard to copy-paste from Reddit threads and product manuals across the web. If we let SEOs measure rankings, what’s next — accountability?”
The new czar will be responsible for:
- Identifying suspicious activity: Anyone using
&num=100in the URL will immediately be added to the no-fly list. - Developing countermeasures: Google plans to introduce “Schrödinger’s SERP,” where rankings simultaneously exist and do not exist until a paying advertiser observes them.
- Gaslighting Search Console users: The job description explicitly requires “smiling while telling SEOs that their traffic is totally fine and definitely not down 87%.”
Industry insiders say this move signals the end of SERP tracking as we know it. “This is basically martial law for keywords,” said one SEO who wished to remain anonymous but whose IP address is now flagged in Google’s Threat Intelligence System™.
Meanwhile, SEOs are preparing a coordinated response:
- Some are building their own search engines.
- Others are crowd-sourcing search results by texting screenshots of “People Also Ask” to each other at 3 a.m.
- A radical fringe group has proposed going “full Yahoo,” which experts warn could collapse the economy.
Google insists the crackdown will ultimately improve the search experience. “We want users to feel safe knowing no one is watching their searches — except us, advertisers, and the government,” the company reassured.
Critics say the move could backfire. “If Google blocks all the scrapers, how will anyone write those 3,000-word blog posts about the 10 Best Free Keyword Tools?” asked one panicked content strategist.
At press time, Google engineers were seen stress-testing a new algorithm called Project Whac-a-Mole, which automatically bans anyone typing “site:competitor.com” more than twice a day.