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Why Do Google Hit Numbers Vary?
Craig writes: "Thanks for the great question. We get this from time to time and hopefully I can clear up some of the confusion. The number of estimated pages listed to the top right of a Google search results page is indeed, an estimate. It's a good estimate but still, an estimate.
There are many reasons why one might see a difference in the estimated number of pages returned for the same query. It's most likely the queries made by your co-workers were sent to different Google datacenters in what appears to have been a round-robin fashion. The index at any given Google datacenter can change slightly over the course of a day (each index is refreshed completely every three to four weeks). Depending on which datacenter finishes a query, the estimated number of results may vary.
Without having direct access to your environment it is hard for me to tell for sure, however, I believe this is the case."
OK, great, question answered.
Umm, why was this story posted?
I got 1,030,000 hits.
;oP
I'm better than you!
nah nah poo poo
It's too bad Google doesn't have one of those things where you can watch everyone's search scrolling down the screen live. I bet there would be a lot of "pictures of mountains" searches right about now.
I think some engine had that (metacrawler)? back in the day, was fun to watch, and I believe they didnt censor it.
No wonder I couldn't find the website I was looking for! It was in those missing 10,000 websites. If I had only gotten those and checked through them as thoroughly as I checked the other 1,010,000 then I would have certainly found it.
/. page and the poll from last week appears. You'd think the Uber Midgets and Stealth Ninjas could get it right ;-)
Humor aside, this is pretty interesting. Alot like when you vote in a poll, go back to the main
Posting as directed.
like snowflakes falling
google queries melt upon
different servers
like the wild flowers
each view of the database
unique, yet alike
and...
its that time of month
google dances, results wiggle
w00t first haiku post
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
It's simple, really... mountains are the new thing in pornography. People are snapping and posting so many pictures of naughty, erotically shaped rock formations that the number of mountain pics available worldwide on the net is rising by about 10,000 every 10 minutes.
Soon, the number of phallic granite pics worldwide will even exceed the number of Jenna Jameson facials. Quite the phenomenon, really.
Finally, proof that all Ask Slashdot questions could be more quickly answered by simply checking with Google :)
314-15-9265
The way Slashdot editors keep reposting stories? Indefinitely!
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
--naked
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
Results have been inconsistent ever since they let those damn pigeons unionize. He's obviously covering for the union.
And with all the dupes, we might start seeing more of these too!
AC comments get piped to
bevis: Huh-huh. They said *mountains*. Huh-huh.
*smack*
butt_head: They are slashdot. They make such references to screw up the google database, thus completly validating their newstories. Inevitable reposts will bump the number even higher!
bevis: like a conspiracy. huh-huh
butt_head: conspiracies are cool!
If a man's character is to be abused there's nobody like a relative to do the business. -Thackeray, William
I have a question about some conflicting results with the search engine google. I did a search for "pictures of mountains" and got exactly 1 million results.
Steven? Is that you? Dude - you're smoking too much pot!
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
- who cares....as long as it works
You, sir, will never be a geek.Maybe you should Ask Slashdot?
Random is the New Order.
A search for 'ask slashdot correct answer'
returns 10,400 hits.
A search for 'ask slashdot'
returns 104,000 hits.
Therefore, I would conclude that Slashdot going directly to the source immediately is very rare.
Obviously YMMV.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
You buy a TV ad during the super bowl (or whatever) and wait for the orders to just roll in.
Perhaps we should Ask Jeeves.
Hmmmmmm?
I suspect that Google employs the nucular radiation-enhanced, super pigeons as actual editors (as opposed to the slashdot phenomenon). Regular columbiformes are probably relegated to mundane crawling/pecking duty.
My site, which is admittedly somewhat unique, has been listed in the top 5 for over 18 months now if the appropriate keywords are used.
Of course, it also helps that those keywords are snarklbort, giffleblag and byzgetford.
... anyone care to tell me what they see
on this one?
This space for rent.
Everyone knows it's because of he pigeons. Everytime you have an analog element, such as a pigeon, in the equation your end result will vary.
"We have determined that the result varies because google does not like some of you for personal reasons."
Table-ized A.I.
A search for 'ask slashdot correct answer'
returns 10,400 hits.
It's more rare than this first indicates.
'ask slashdot not correct answer'
returns 10,300 hits.
So only 100 are actually correct, the rest are complaining about it not being correct.
With the exception of my name, I run a couple of sites that are no where near the top results for the categories people arrive with in their referers.
And as I was explaining to a friend last week, the photo of her at my wedding attracts desperate surfers looking for a similarly named Malaysian porn star.
Slashdot is right vs. Slashdot is wrong:
slashdot sucks vs. slashdot rules:
slashdot correct vs. slashdot incorrect:
Cmdrtaco vs. cowboyneal
News for nerds vs. Stuff that Matters
So Google has more then one datacenter to cache Slashdot and Slashot often caches itself when it dupes storys. So the cached story on Google is a dupe of perveious story but Google's second datacenter purges ths story because it is a dupe and then is reposted again on Slashdot when is purged by the first datacenter and duped again and purged by second datacenter and cached on the third and duped by slashdot....*bang*
See judge he needed killing. He was stuck. It was a mercy killing...
Slashdot, home of supporters of free software, free music, and free speech.Except for Moderators that disagree with you.
Spell Check:
Type in candidate spellings of a word, and assume the spelling with the most search results is the right one:
'amatuer' -> 3.9e6 hits, 'amateur' -> 35e6 hits. Amateur it is.
'modelling' -> 2.6e6 hits, 'modeling' -> 5.7e6 hits. Close call, perhaps both are acceptable?
Ego Boost:
Everyone knows about this one: see what comes up under your own name (put it in quotes if necessary)- Hopefully if you run a small website or comment with your real name frequently in a google searchable place that'll come up first. But you'll have to work hard to beat out all those genealogy sites that just list thousands of names, graveyard roll-calls and whatnot. Oh, and there's some court case from five years ago where you're name is featured prominently. My namesake is shared with one of the first shaken babies to die and become a major local (wherever it happened) newstory- not much of a boost after all.
Stalking:
I'd imagine this pretty similar to the previous, but with names of other people you know or used to know: your old college sweetheart died in 1892! Wait...
Trademark pre-research .com,.org,or .net site with the same name resolves, just in case.
You need a product name- something fresh and original, and easily googleable? Start with a few ideas, and use a thesaurus (and don't forget cool foreign language words/roots) to refine the name until google hits are down to a zero. Run words together or otherwise potential customers will end up at sites that just randomly use those words at different points of the text- assume the customer is too dumb or lazy to use quotes.
'NodeZero' is my new badass something-or-other- wait there's 1K hits, how about 'NodeNull'? Only 8 now, that's good, but better yet try 'NodeNothing'- zero results.
After the google test see if the
I'm sure there's many more...
Oh, page hits?! Err, nevermind.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.
It's called the "Google Dance"
Wow, I must really be tired...the first thing I thought of when I read this was a hampsterdance.com-esque site complete with dancing "Google"s and background music.
I pledge allegiance to the flag...
of the Corporate States of America...
I have proven your theory! You are a genius!
"I have a question about some conflicting results with the search engine google. I did a search for "pictures of mountains" and got exactly 1 million results. My friend did the same search (from the same office)and got 1,010,000 results. A second friend did the same search as the last 2 and got 1,020,000"
I work at Google. This is a new feature that we added about four months ago, it's called the Friend Result Growth: For searches that return a huge result, the engine approximates the returned number as 1,000,000 + Friend*10,000.
-Fatty
"Wow, I must really be tired...the first thing I thought of when I read this was a hampsterdance.com-esque site complete with dancing "Google"s and background music."
/ 221829/ 873?pid=13#16
Take a look at this:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2003/1/27
Be afraid... be very afraid...
fair.org counterpunch.com truthout.com indymedia.org salon.com
eff.org guerrilla.net debian.org gentoo.org
Once a month ? This is slashdot you lucky bastard !
beauty is only a light switch away
#1 Search query for Feb 2003 is...
:)
"pictures of mountains"
Your search - snarklbort giffleblag byzgetford - did not match any documents.
No pages were found containing "snarklbort".
Suggestions:
- Make sure all words are spelled correctly.
- Try different keywords.
- Try more general keywords.
- Try fewer keywords.
or there are many many horny people that have not been satisfied by the first 249 links :)
Sneak teach kids Algebra using a game
"Want more karma? Consider responding to any post of mine! Never fails."
Really?? Intriguing. This demands a test.
The weather is quite nice in Calgary right now. (Offtopic)
Bill Gates is a visionary, and Microsoft Windows is far superior to Linux or Mac. Simpsons sucks. (Flamebait)
F1rst p0zt! This article is stupid! Hemos and CmdrTaco are nazis! Free pR0n! (Troll)
Hey, Google has varying results because they have multiple datacentres, btw. (Redundant)
And this post will start at 2, which is definitely Overrated. That's every possible negative mod. This reply can't POSSIBLY gain karma.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
I'll get my coat...
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.