The search engines are rigged - deleting the internet - THIS is next level BS!

originally posted by: ArMaP
I agree, it's ridiculous to think there are less than 200 pages on the Internet with the expression "dark matter".

I got well over 30 pages of results (so well over 400 individual pages) plus videos along with suggested search terms on Google. My results were from PNAS and universities and so forth.

a reply to: Byrd

The default for Google is 10 results per page (and that includes the paid results and the images section, if I'm not mistaken), so 30 pages show at most 300 results.

Unless you changed the settings for a higher number of results per page.

I found this, that explains, in part, what is happening.
Apparently, as it's not an official answer from Google.

The number that appears at the top of the first page of search results, "About nnn results", is Google's statistical estimate of how many indexed web pages there might be that match the search terms.

There's a limit to the number of results Google eventually chooses to display. That number has varied over the years, but currently seems to be around 400

Google has always limited the total number of results displayed. I think at one stage it used to be 1,000, then a few years ago it was reduced to 700. It's now about 400.

originally posted by: Byrd

originally posted by: ArMaP
I agree, it's ridiculous to think there are less than 200 pages on the Internet with the expression "dark matter".

I got well over 30 pages of results (so well over 400 individual pages) plus videos along with suggested search terms on Google. My results were from PNAS and universities and so forth.

You can get even more by manipulating the url. The "number of results" is an estimate, and that estimate spans across ALL results that are related to the query string (even the results that are in a language you're never going to get visiting the .com tld, images that are tagged, products, videos etc... Theres not a 1:1 between number of results and web pages).

The internet isnt being "deleted" . Providing low latency access to literal exabytes of indexed data isnt something that any reasonable organization is going to attempt to do because they cant. Not yet at least.

The last number of results estimate is kept warmed just as the most relevant (based on metrics, think about when you're trying to determine which modules to lazy load vs eagerly load) are kept warm. This is why when you make changes to your content the changes are reflected immediately. They must first be indexed, then slotted in when invalidations occur, which at that time a new "number of results" will get generated.

A programmer should understand why 100% of Google's indexed data cant be kept warm, especially if user behavior indicates its extremely rare to browse beyond page 10.

originally posted by: AScrubWhoDied
A programmer should understand why 100% of Google's indexed data cant be kept warm, especially if user behavior indicates its extremely rare to browse beyond page 10.

My main problem is the inconsistency of the results, like the example I posted a few pages back.
Why does a search for Kardashian family returns more results than a search for Kardashian?
As Kardashian family is more specific than Kardashian it should return, at most, as much results, not more.

a reply to: ArMaP

When you do a search for "cookies" You will get everything such as websites with the word cookies in the url, in the text, in the name of files. That's why it shows so many. Many of them not really what you may be looking for. So being more specific helps and keeping it to a dull roar. Using search parameters is very useful and powerful as I have shown previously. You can do that for many things like searching for specific things even within ATS domain. Like search Abovetopsecret.com for the word foo fighter.

a reply to: sean

I know that, but, again, that does not explain how a search for Kardashian shows less results than a search for Kardashian family.

The word Kardashian is part of the expression Kardashian family, it should appear at least in the same results. Besides that, it should appear in other pages where the expression Kardashian family does not exist but Kardashian does.

a reply to: ArMaP

Typically there is more media reporting on the words "Kardashian Family" so you will get more hits.

a reply to: sean

I used these expressions because Kardashian is part of the expression Kardashian family.

Being part of the other expression it should appear in the same pages (and in others), why does Google show less results for Kardashian?

Bing does the same, it shows 345 results for Kardashian family and 292 for Kardashian. It should at least show the same 345 results in which Kardashian family appears, as they also have the expression Kardashian.

a reply to: ArMaP

A lot has to do with the website developer too. Website metadata title tags.

a reply to: sean

It shouldn't be, the tags are supposed to help classify the type of information on the site, not to replace the actual content.

a reply to: DaRAGE

I've never felt safe on the internet and never will. Don't trust big corporate companies.

a reply to: ArMaP

Pretty sure Google treats consecutive keywords as "or" so you'll get everything with "Kardashian", everything with "family" and everything with "Kardashian family" which will be a larger set than just "Kardashian".

I have had good luck utilizing archive.org... as a search engine as it often does not respond to site removals and post edits.

a reply to: oikos

It worked like that some time ago (and I suppose it still does to give the higher results number), but if we do a search for "kardashian family" we get 144 results and for "kardashian" we get 106.

originally posted by: ArMaP

originally posted by: AScrubWhoDied
A programmer should understand why 100% of Google's indexed data cant be kept warm, especially if user behavior indicates its extremely rare to browse beyond page 10.

My main problem is the inconsistency of the results, like the example I posted a few pages back.
Why does a search for Kardashian family returns more results than a search for Kardashian?
As Kardashian family is more specific than Kardashian it should return, at most, as much results, not more.

Because you're getting results for Kardashian AND family and some will be about "family" but not Kardashian. If you want ONLY Kardashian Family, you have to put it in quotes like this "Kardashian family" I get 2.2 million results (Kardassian family") versus 437 million results for Kardashian using Google.


(n.b. - our browsers will show different numbers and results because of sites I add and sites I eliminate on my browsers)

originally posted by: Byrd
Because you're getting results for Kardashian AND family and some will be about "family" but not Kardashian.

For a boolean AND, all terms must exist, so a boolean search for kardashian AND family would show only pages in which both words are present, so a search for either Kardashian or family should return more than a search for Kardashian family or Kardashian AND family.

If you want ONLY Kardashian Family, you have to put it in quotes like this "Kardashian family" I get 2.2 million results (Kardassian family") versus 437 million results for Kardashian using Google.

I know that, and I'm not focusing on the number of results presented on the first page, I going through the pages to see how many results Google really returns.
Also, see my post just above yours.

(n.b. - our browsers will show different numbers and results because of sites I add and sites I eliminate on my browsers)

I know that. Even using the same browser on the same computer can give slightly different results on different days.

Are you putting the quotes around the different search terms like your post?

Quotes around it makes it a single term so they would be like a Boolean and but if you're just using two words adjacent to each other google treats it as Boolean or, which goes some way to explain the discrepancy in the number of results.

Sorry if this seems patronising, I'm not trying to insult your intelligence here I'm just seeing people throw terms around without apparently understand them and I want to make sure we're not seeing things that maybe aren't there.

a reply to: ArMaP

originally posted by: oikos
Are you putting the quotes around the different search terms like your post?

I post the search terms exactly like I used them, so if I posted them with quotes that's how I used them. In the same way, when I didn't use the quotes I posted the search terms in bold, to make it easier to identify.

Quotes around it makes it a single term so they would be like a Boolean and but if you're just using two words adjacent to each other google treats it as Boolean or, which goes some way to explain the discrepancy in the number of results.

I think they stopped treating two words as Boolean OR, but, regardless of that, searching for "Kardashian family" should not give more results than searching for "family", as "family" is part of "Kardashian family", so it appears in the same pages. Besides that, there are other families, so "family" should return many more results than "Kardashian family", but it does not.

Sorry if this seems patronising, I'm not trying to insult your intelligence here I'm just seeing people throw terms around without apparently understand them and I want to make sure we're not seeing things that maybe aren't there.

No problems, sometimes we forget that the people we are talking to are complete strangers and we know nothing about them, so it's always better to ask.



I just saw an example of how Google does its searches: I searched for Lisboa, and Google answered with (supposedly) 279,000,000 and a notice saying "Including results for lisbon", so I clicked on the "Search only for lisboa" and got 159,000,000 results.

I just throw this article to here, more eyes to test & validate ..


Instructional: Using Targeted Web Searches to Find Information FAST


It had this for example , to search .PDF

Search .PDF