Has Google Dumped Data? Millions of Results Less Being Reported

[bwnbwn]

On all the searchees I look at a regular basis I am now seeing millions less results posted.

Some searches 10 million less some searches 2 million less and so on. It kinda looks like a certian percentange have been dumped from the database.

I am still able to go to the 900 result so this is the same just millions of results less.

[dimmer]

My page count is down by about 50% from earlier this week.

[gomer]

I've seen some page counts start to slip today for a few sites I follow.

[tedster]

Note that the opening post is talking about a drop in the number of total results reported for a search, and I've seen that going down, too. This could be a change in the way Google taps the initial results for a page estimate - in other words just a change in how they get that total number to report. But coupled with the drop in site: result numbers, it does make me wonder.

[Atomic]

This is just the discussion I was hoping to find. It seems as if this happens fairly regularly now but then rebounds quickly. I recall it happening about a month ago. I hope this is a repeat.

[conor]

Been seeing this as well over the last week - seems to jump back though after a day or so.

[Marcia]

I don't believe they're dumping any data at all. It's my belief (or best guess) that what we're seeing is because they're utilizing statistical query data and making use of partitioned indexing to maximize the efficiency and speed of returning query time results.

[g1smd]

There was an idential thread about a month ago.

What was the result of that?

Did the counts go back up and then fall again, or is this yet another fall?

In any case, some datacentres have some very different counts in them at present, and in fact have done so, for at least 3 or 4 months.

[Atomic]

Did the counts go back up and then fall again, or is this yet another fall?

They went back up. This feels just like what happened a month ago. Seems like it happened the month before that as well. Each time the counts returned to normal within a few days.

[g1smd]

In that case, I have seen this happen in Google, two and three and four years ago, on a random (not monthly as far as I can remember) basis.

There was a cycle of related events that I no longer remember the details for, but which were documented here in the forum back at that time.

[youfoundjake]

I did post about this, about a month ago. The reason was the EXTREME drop, taking into account that drops do happen, but what I was experiencing was pretty severe.

[webmasterworld.com...] is the original thread.

My key phrase is still showing 651,000 results, but 957 are being displayed. This down from an average of 10-11 million results consistently...

[g1smd]

There was a period some 2 or 3 years ago when result counts rose by insane amounts over a period of a few months.

There was speculation back then those estimates were way off. Maybe they are suddenly no longer over-estimating?

[Atomic]

Maybe they are suddenly no longer over-estimating?

What I see is that the pages are no longer there. That would result in a drop in counts, too.

[edd1]

No I think they're pretty much full up with rubbish and are clearing some out. They've decided to only keep adsense data for 1 year instead of indefinitely now. Looks like a declutter excercise to me and about time.

[pleeker]

I believe the lower number of matching results for some queries is due to large numbers of pages being dropped from the index.

CitySearch used to show 13 million pages indexed; it now shows 829,000. This is one of several sites I've been watching for a couple months now just in the local space. If sites across the web are having pages dropped from the index, wouldn't it follow that various search queries will return fewer results?

[SEOPTI]

What I see (and I am quite sure about this), they have improved their duplicate content detection regarding different domains.

They are simply dropping the URLs where they detect similar patterns within your domain or across different domains on the web.

[edited by: SEOPTI at 12:26 am (utc) on Dec. 4, 2007]

[g1smd]

I see a vastly different counts in some datacentres.

For at least the last 6 months 72.14.203.*** has been very different.

Sometimes the counts have been much higher than in other datacentres, and at other times much lower.

[Atomic]

I don't want to sound overly optimistic but the pendulum does appear to be swinging the other way and counts are edging back up slowly.

[edited by: Atomic at 8:23 am (utc) on Dec. 4, 2007]

[g1smd]

It depends which DC you look at.

I see one DC with 51 000 results and another with 84 000 results for example.

[Atomic]

Perhaps, but overall the counts still seem to be creeping up on many sites and terms I monitor. Only about a 15% improvement from the lows but it's encouraging.

There seems to be a small change in the way the pages are ordered, too.

[ann]

It would seem, in my area, that Google is finally separating out
< one particular niche > from the < only somewhat related areas >. The niche is down 6 million sites to 3.3 million from 9 million. Go Google! Now lets hope it holds. :)

Ann

[edited by: tedster at 9:30 pm (utc) on Dec. 4, 2007]
[edit reason] no specific markets, please [/edit]

[300m]

I tend to agree with g1smd on this issue. DC will provide different sets of results. I have watched this kind of thing occur for a couple of years. I am not overly worried about it at this point. When i see a shift in my rankings is when concern creeps in, but that has been consistent for a long time.

Example: on a keyword I rank #1 for it used to bounce between 40 and 80 million results for about 2 years. Only during jagger1, j2, and j3 did i have shifting. I did have issues with big daddy, but that was because I just did a 301 and google was mixing it up.