Is Google's "number of total results" reliable?

can google total results be manipulated?

[gardone]

in one month the google total results concerning one of my customer's name changed from 18,000 to 900 (while this did not happen to his competitors, who still have high results and thus seems to be better-known than my customer, who is asking me to do something.....).
Moreover if his name is searched together with another word, the total results do increase instead of decreasing..... so there must be something wrong.
I don't know how to explain this. Hope some of you can help me.
Thank you!

[Gissit]

Is this name generic term or is it specific to your customer? and the same question of his competitors name?

Two of my domains are quite unique names until you put them in to a search engine and discover that it's not as unique as you first thought

[tedster]

The most basic answer for your question is that the "number of total results" is only an estimate. This is because of the way that Google shards their data. I believe they have been working this year to bring those estimated numbers closer into alignment with "reality" - and in some cases the improvement is obvious.

But I still would not call the numbers reliable, except as a rough estimate. You can sometimes even see the number change as you click through the pages of a search result.

If I wanted to compare those numbers for different searches, I would be very certain that I was query the same dt center both times.

[Quadrille]

There are all sorts of possibilities here, most of which are not too alarming.

But one that matters is the Case of the Multiple URLs.

Some dynamic sites have multiple URLs to reach the same page. This can give Google indigestion, and can result in violent nausea with regurgitation of many listings.

It can settle down on its own, without treatment, but judicious use of robots.txt and careful configuration of databases can reduce the problem and ensure no long term loss of weight. Er, listings.

Often without treatment, the site deteriorates to the point where most listings are supplementary or not at all.

Early intervention is strongly advised. Plus Gaviscon (for you ;) )

[edited by: Quadrille at 12:44 am (utc) on Nov. 29, 2006]

[gardone]

- Is this name generic term or is it specific to your customer? and the same question of his competitors name?

they all are specific names

- The most basic answer for your question is that the "number of total results" is only an estimate.

i realize this but the point is that these results changed from thousands to hundreds.....

- There are all sorts of possibilities here, most of which are not too alarming. But one that matters is the Case of the Multiple URLs.
Some dynamic sites have multiple URLs to reach the same page. This can give Google indigestion, and can result in violent nausea with regurgitation of many listings.
It can settle down on its own, without treatment, but judicious use of robots.txt and careful configuration of databases can reduce the problem and ensure no long term loss of weight. Er, listings.
Often without treatment, the site deteriorates to the point where most listings are supplementary or not at all.
Early intervention is strongly advised. Plus Gaviscon (for you ;) )

Multiple URLs could be a possibility, but take account that these are used by other sites (several and not related), including information on both my customer and the others.... why did only the first give indigestion?
Which are the other possibilities (alarmimg and not) you refer to? thank you!

[Quadrille]

Most of the probabilities are search related - , most of them mentioned above; Google's results can vary due to their own unknown variables, thefact that they have scores of data centers, which can produce wildly different results, and the exact terms you enter into your search. Ssingulars, plurals, alternate spellings ... minor variations can have a huge effect on results, as can the use (or not) of "".

But I suspect we're missing the point here. SEs can only find what's there, and have no control over how many times a name is mentioned, and what key words go with it.

If that's an issue, you need to be thinking about which results have 'disappeared', and which sites have gone.

I suspect we'd give you more useful answers if we understood better what you (kind of thing) were you searching for, and why (actual terms not required, though).

In other words, what do you really want to know, and why does the number of results matter?

[gardone]

- Most of the probabilities are search related - , most of them mentioned above; Google's results can vary due to their own unknown variables, thefact that they have scores of data centers, which can produce wildly different results

what are data centers? are they in different countries? is there a control over these centers to avoid that results are changed in some way to give somebody an advantage?

- you need to be thinking about which results have 'disappeared', and which sites have gone.

It is difficult to say because over 1000 results the sites are not displayed... Anyway what is difficult to understand is what happens when one searches not only the name - say "John Brown" - but other words. For example:

"John Brown" : total results = 900 (this was 18,000 one month ago)
"John Brown" job : total results = 3000 (should be <900)
"John Brown" site:www.sitename.com : total results = 500
"John Brown" -site:www.sitename.com : total results = 850 (should be 900-500=400)

thank you!

[Quadrille]

But is it the site you are concerned about, or his name? I'm really not quite clear.

And is it just one site, or more?

One useful search to do regularly is a chunk of unique text from the site "WebmasterWorld Inc. 1997-2006 all rights reserved" kind of thing. It gives you a keyword-free yardstick of what is happening with the site, and can warn of major problems.

Google has many datacenters, (search for many discussions), most of which carry the 'current' results, but some may be experimental, weird, or the shape of things to come.

If your site looks in trouble, searching on more than one datacenter can be useful. And confusing ;)

[gardone]

- But is it the site you are concerned about, or his name? I'm really not quite clear.

his name

- And is it just one site, or more?

many sites
by www.sitename.com I mean any site quoting his name, in different countries and languages

thank you for your help!

(....I think that google should give much more explanations about the quality of search processes. to the extent that search results are more and more relevant to business competition it is absurd that they can do everything without transparency)