Why Do Google Hit Numbers Vary?

Supa-Fly writes "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. These have not changed and every person gets the same results each time. My question is what is up with the discrepancies on google's search results?" Since this question is hard to answer from the outside, Craig Silverstein of Google kindly supplies his best answer to this question, below.

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."

Comments

Its too bad..

[FunkSoulBrother]

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.

Eureka!

[creative_name]

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.

Humor aside, this is pretty interesting. Alot like when you vote in a poll, go back to the main /. page and the poll from last week appears. You'd think the Uber Midgets and Stealth Ninjas could get it right ;-)

First Google Haiku Post

[Ayanami Rei]

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

*grin*

[Eric Seppanen]

Finally, proof that all Ask Slashdot questions could be more quickly answered by simply checking with Google :)

This is a coverup

[elhondo]

Results have been inconsistent ever since they let those damn pigeons unionize. He's obviously covering for the union.

Re:Amazing!

[Drakonian]

How long can such a good thing last, I wonder.

Maybe you should Ask Slashdot?

Re:Pictures of Mountains? No wonder

[breon.halling]

This is for those of you who think he's kidding... ;)

Re:Amazing!

[SpaceLifeForm]

Well, according to google,
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.

Re:Amazing! - Ask GoogleFight

[poopie]

How self-referential! Referring to http://googlefight.com in an article about Google on slashdot, replying to a post that is using google to determine to accuracy of 'Ask Slashdot'... and providing links that rates two google searches about slashdot against each other.

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

Re:uh... (sex)

[Corbin Dallas]

I'm lucky if I get hit on for sex once a month. How do you guys get so many offers?

Oh, page hits?! Err, nevermind. :-)