Google Erased $3 Billion in Market Cap - and Showed that the Top 10 is Everything

How Search Results, AI, and Reddit are all interconnected

When a single URL parameter can erase billions of dollars in valuation, something fundamental about digital strategy comes into focus. As Silverback Strategies recently highlighted, Reddit’s valuation took a nosedive after Google deprecated the &num=100 parameter, a change that inadvertently devalued Reddit’s content in Chatgpt results. Essentially, Google removed the ability to scrape or view 100 results at a time, instead requiring tools and users to view 10 results at a time. The result meant that ChatGPT was less likely to cite Reddit pages in its readouts, causing investors to look at Reddit in a new light with a changing LLM landscape. The implications of Google’s change not only have an impact on GEO (generative engine optimization) but they mean that SEO (search engine optimization) and your positioning on Google’s SERP (search engine results page) matter more than ever.

For years, many have predicted the decline of SEO. AI answers, social algorithms, and voice search were supposed to make “ranking” obsolete. Yet Reddit’s stumble proves the opposite: organic visibility remains a direct driver of business value. When you lose it, the market notices.

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Organic Remains the Foundation of Discoverability

AI may be reshaping how people find information, but it’s built on the same backbone that’s powered the web for decades: Structured, crawlable, optimized content. Every AI system, from chat-based assistants to recommendation algorithms, relies on high-quality indexed data to serve results. If your brand’s content isn’t well-structured for both traditional search engines and AI crawlers, you’re effectively invisible in the next era of discovery. 

Although the methods of crawling and content delivery are evolving, the core principles remain unchanged. If you build performant, relevant content that answers questions that users have, and provide a seamless experience in their search for answers (along with proper citations and links), you’ve put yourself in the best position to win market share. Technical soundness and semantic clarity are the differentiators—so invest in the tools and resources that make that clarity fundamental to your website.

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The AI Era Doesn’t Replace SEO, It Expands It

At Harper, we explore how Geo-distributed architectures and AI-driven systems are transforming application performance and user experience. The same principles apply to search: AI doesn’t eliminate the need for technical optimization; it amplifies it.

Now more than ever, businesses need to think beyond traditional content strategies of the last 10 years and embrace Answer Engine Optimization (AEO) alongside SEO to ensure their content is discoverable, trustworthy, and cited by AI-driven answer engines. (Learn how in this guide: Answer Engine Optimization: How to Get Cited by AI Answers.)

In the AI era, SEO and AEO together become a multi-dimensional practice—part technical hygiene, part content strategy, part data infrastructure. It’s about preparing your content to perform across interfaces, devices, and contexts that didn’t even exist five years ago. When structured correctly, your brand doesn’t just appear in a list of links; it becomes the answer.

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What Marketing and SEO Leaders Should Take Away

If Google’s deprecation of the &num=100 parameter can move markets, it’s time to treat SEO as core infrastructure. The cost of neglect is no longer just lower traffic, it’s lost trust, brand invisibility, and even valuation. The benefits are sizable, and you can expect to see much higher ROI from technical SEO initiatives than you have in the past. Additionally, all the investments that you make on the technical side of the house to improve schema, LCP, CLS, and INP will ultimately create a better user experience for mobile-first browsers, and will thus help improve your SEM spend!

In 2025, the smartest companies will be those that blend AI innovation with SEO fundamentals: fast, indexable content; clear data structures; resilient visibility strategies. As the Reddit example shows, technical excellence in discoverability is more than good marketing, it’s table stakes.

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