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Why Do Google Hit Numbers Vary?

Posted by timothy on from the horse-mouth-opens dept.

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."

7 of 362 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Best search engine by FleshWound · · Score: 0, Offtopic
    the other wasn't a mountain at all...it was a hill.
    So, Google likes making mountains out of (mole)hills, eh? =)
  2. OT: Your Sig by shepd · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    >Tell me, Mr. Anderson, what good is a phone call when you are unable to speak?

    Perfectly fine, if you ask me. Phone have buttons. Hook me up with a phone and someone with a live brain on the other end and I'm all set. ;-)

    --
    If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
  3. It raises another question. . . by aoteoroa · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Does anybody here do anything special to market their web sites?

    What works?
    What doesn't?
    Where did you learn these tricks?

    I ask these questions because last Friday someone asked me how to market web sites and I really had no answer for him.

  4. Re:IN SOVIET RUSSIA by Reloaded · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    They are getting damn old.

  5. How to improve your search by sstidman · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    I did a search for "pictures of mountains" and got exactly 1 million results.

    I've found that you get better results on Google if you search for what you're really looking for instead of beating around the bush. Try searching for "pictures of breasts". ;-)

    --
    Send/track messages to 100K people: www.xPressAlert.com
  6. Re:The Winner Is.... by danielmaui · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    and when you put Jobs up against Bill, you get?

  7. Re:Handy search tip in Opera by AugstWest · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    Along those same lines, if you just enter search terms into the address bar in Phoenix, it's like entering your terms in google and hitting "I'm feeling lucky."

    They've gotten SO much right with phoenix that I'm hoping soon they'll implement something that prevents sites from resizing your browser.

    Or, since I'm just dreaming anyway, I hope that society evolves to the point where people realize that noone actually WANTS their browsers to fill their whole screens spontaneously, and they'll give up on the practice.