Implications of ranking using the 'site:' command

What's your experience

[dataguy]

I have a large popular site which we continually run A/B testing for optimizing on-page factors, and then compare actual traffic numbers on the test pages. Today I noticed that there is a new test which we are running which has all the test pages ranking immediately after the home page when we do a site: command on Google.

We've never thought of it before, but does the ranking order which is shown when using the site: command have any relevance to how Google views on-page factors? Does it have any relevance to off-page factors like back links?

I don't recall this being discussed here before so I would like to know if there is a consensus on the meaning of this ranking.

[tedster]

The order appears inscrutable to me.

My guess for a while has been that the order of results in the site: operator search reflects the last time Google changed the time/date stamp of the main file for the URL involved. In other words, the order seems to be based on some interal Google factor and there's little else I can read into it.

Somtimes when a number of urls goes "supplemental" at once, they all appear at the top if the list -- causing the site owner a moment of deep panic that they've lost the entire domain.