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Google's Bigger Index

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the how-much-of-it-is-crap dept.

WebGangsta writes "Google Inc. today announced it expanded the breadth of its web index to more than 6 billion items. This innovation represents a milestone for Internet users, enabling quick and easy access to the world's largest collection of online information."

5 of 412 comments (clear)

  1. They said 6 billion items, not webpages. by LostCluster · · Score: 5, Informative

    Notice that they claim that they search 6 billion items, but the home page only claims that they're "Searching 4,285,199,774 web pages".

    To find the rest, we need to use Google's other services. The image search is claiming "Searching 880,000,000 images". Google Groups says its "Searching 845,000,000 messages". Add those to the count and you get 6,010,199,744 items total.

  2. Re:how many? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    That sort of search result spamming is getting out of hand.

    Maybe if more people used Google's Search Quality feedback form, it would help weed them out.

  3. Google Print by blorg · · Score: 5, Informative
    "Google's collection of 6 billion items comprises 4.28 billion web pages, 880 million images, 845 million Usenet messages, and a growing collection of book-related information pages."

    I was interested that they mentioned Google Print, which is Google's answer to Amazon's Search Inside feature, but hasn't got much press, and is pretty well hidden in Google itself.

    You can check it out by limiting results to site print.google.com, e.g. searchterm site:print.google.com. (Not quite at Amazon-type numbers yet.)

  4. Is /. pro Google? by dark-br · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Google currently does not allow outsiders to gain access to raw data because of privacy concerns. Searches are logged by time of day, originating I.P. address (information that can be used to link searches to a specific computer), and the sites on which the user clicked. People tell things to search engines that they would never talk about publicly -- Viagra, pregnancy scares, fraud, face lifts. What is interesting in the aggregate can seem an invasion of privacy if narrowed to an individual."


    That's a quote from the NYtimes (free req. yada yada) also posted as is here

    If any other site were to track the stuff Google does, /. would be up in arms protesting!

    Please note, this isn't a troll, and I'm not wearing a tin-foil hat (maybe I should?). Imagine the following scenario: a bomb goes off in the US. By tracing searches for "anarchist cookbook" to zipcodes within the area of the bomb blast, the FBI could have access to information that makes TIA look like a better alternative.

    Maybe this isn't such a good feature after all...

  5. Re:What I want to know... by ctishman · · Score: 5, Informative

    Use that "Dissatisfied with your search results? Help us improve." link at the bottom of the page. Voila.