A federal judge has dismissed Google’s amended complaint against SerpApi, the company that sells access to Google search results through an API, and given Google 21 days to try again. Chief Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California granted SerpApi’s motion to dismiss on Monday, 9 November. If Google does not file a corrected complaint by 30 November, the case will be dismissed with prejudice — ending it for good.
What the ruling says
The ruling turns on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, not on whether scraping is lawful. Google accused SerpApi of getting around SearchGuard, the system it launched in January 2025 to stop bots copying its search results. The judge found Google had not alleged enough to show that the results SerpApi scraped contained copyrighted material SearchGuard was protecting.
Google’s most specific allegation concerned Reddit. The company pointed to licensed Reddit content in its results and to its licensing agreement with Reddit, but the judge found the agreement did not show Google was authorised to use a technological measure to control access to that content.
The court stressed that it was not ruling SerpApi’s scraping lawful — only that Google’s complaint, as written, did not state a claim under the DMCA. Nor had Google shown it was authorised to protect the material at issue in this case.
What happens next
Google must correct the deficiencies the judge identified and submit a redline showing what changed from its previous complaint. SerpApi then has 21 days to respond, and discovery stays on hold while any new dismissal motion is resolved. If Google misses the 30 November deadline, the dismissal becomes final.
Our Read
The ruling narrows Google’s legal route against scrapers without closing it. The judge is demanding precision — which content, whose copyright, and what authorisation — rather than a broad claim that search results are Google’s to protect. That is a hard bar for a company whose results are mostly other people’s pages.
It explains why Google’s first two attempts have both failed on the pleadings rather than on the facts. For the SEO platforms, AI products, and data vendors that depend on automated access to Google results, the case is now a watch item with a deadline.
If Google cannot fix the complaint by 30 November, its copyright case against SerpApi ends — but the company has other tools, and it has already shown it can block scrapers technically even while it loses in court. The legal fight matters less than the practical one.
Why It Matters
Search results are the raw material for a large part of the AI industry, from SEO tools to the answer engines that summarise the web. A ruling that Google cannot use the DMCA to fence off its results would leave that supply line open, while a successful amended complaint would give every platform a new legal risk.
Some of that supply is already moving to paid deals — OpenAI now pays Cloudflare for crawl access — which shows the industry hedging either outcome. Either way, the 30 November deadline is the next date that decides which way this goes.
Background
Google sued SerpApi in July 2026, and the original complaint was dismissed the same month after the court found publicly accessible search results and snippets were not copyrighted works Google could protect. Reddit has a separate case against SerpApi and others in New York, where a judge largely let its claims proceed.
Platforms are also tightening their own terms: Meta has set a 20 November deadline for new scraping terms, and Google’s own SearchGuard system continues to block automated access even as the court case runs. The technical defences, unlike the legal ones, need no judge’s permission.
Source: Search Engine Roundtable’s report and PPC Land.
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