A federal judge has dismissed Google’s amended DMCA complaint against SerpApi, the scraping case we covered when Google added its licensing-deal terms. Google can still refile by November 30, 2026.
Search Engine Roundtable’s Barry Schwartz reported the ruling Tuesday. The judge granted SerpApi’s request for dismissal because Google had not pleaded enough facts to support its Digital Millennium Copyright Act claims. The ruling does not find that SerpApi’s scraping is lawful. It addresses only whether the pleading was sufficient.
Next steps are procedural. Google must fix the flaws the judge identified and file a redline against its prior complaint. After that, SerpApi gets three weeks to answer, and discovery stays paused. If Google misses the deadline, the case ends with prejudice.
The court now wants specifics on licensing, copyright ownership, and the content being protected. Those are the details Google’s earlier amendment was meant to supply.
For teams running scraping-based rank trackers, nothing changes today, but the November 30 filing will show how much licensing detail Google can actually put on the record.
Search Engine Roundtable, reporting by Barry Schwartz, November 10, 2026.
