Number of pages returned

what does it indicate..

[needinfo]

During the Esmeralda update if a search on one datacentre returns 1,000,000 results and on another datacentre it returns 1,100,000 does this mean that the latter results are more up to date and indicative of how the new index will end up.

I have asked this before but never got any answers.

[needinfo]

I'm sure my question will seem obvious to most people, I imagine you would think more pages returned obviously equals more data therefore more up to date crawl etc.. or does it indicate possibly certain filters being turned on and off allowing more/less pages to be returned.

So once again does anybody have the definative answer to this.

[berli]

Frankly, could be either one.

In my case, due to Dominic and the April deepcrawl getting thrown out the window, Google actually has MORE pages from my site in the current index than in the new, minty fresh index. The only problem is that all of the additional pages are actually pages that I moved using permanent 301 redirects (and one that 404'ed for Google because I forgot to redirect it -- fixed that the other night).

IMO, getting rid of the old pages will be more helpful for Google users, even if I have to wait another month for googlebot to catch on and pick up my "new" old pages (which I've been linking to since, oh, February!).

Heh, once Dominic started and all my hard work was trashed, all my Google search referred traffic has come from the one page that I have in DMOZ. Never thought that little link would amount to anything, but it has saved me from oblivion. Thank you, thank you, thank you.