site: query results changed to always include Supplementals

improvement?

[daveVk]

Matt Cutts [mattcutts.com ] mentions fixes to operation of site: searchs

It appears that site: searchs now always include supplementary pages in number of pages reported and in search results. This differs from regular searchs where sup pages are only included if insufficient regular results are available.

Designed to make site owners feel better?

[jonrichd]

Dave, I think this was to fix a bug in the new BigDaddy infrastructure. In the past, Google used to show supplementals in a site: search. The first rollout of BigDaddy would only show pages in the main index, as long as no terms were used in the search.

This led webmasters to think that massive number of pages had been dropped completely.

I think this change only brings BigDaddy up to the way things used to work, except, as I understand, more pages may be supplemental than previously.

[g1smd]

Yes, this change in showing Supplemental Results, including them again, now makes BigDaddy work the same way that the "old Google" used to work.

However, there are less Supplemental Results now as all those dated before 2005 June have been dumped. Google has created some new Supplemental Results based on data changes that have happened in the last 9 months. They no longer show the old data that went back almost three years though.

[daveVk]

Thanks jonrichd, was not aware of pre BigDaddy operation of site: search.

Interesting side effect is that you can now find number of supplemental pages

Eg ( figures from my site )
site:www.mysite.com gives 22600
inurl:www.mysite.com gives 278

supplemental 22600-278 = 22322

This relies on inurl: returning results only from main index, which will not be the case if current trend continues