Forum Moderators: Robert Charlton & goodroi
If you are talking about the number of results with a site: operator, that is a different question. Something is changing there, too. For example, suppose a domain has three directories, and if you use site:example.com you get 1,000 urls. But if you use site:example.com/dir1/, site:example.com/dir2/ and site:example.com/dir3/ you often will get a larger total number of urls.
For me, those special operators can be helpful but they are reporting functions only - the important thing is still how much traffic you get from Google Search and is it sending people from the right search terms to the right urls on your site. You can get very crazy worrying about the reporting functions that bug out - and that included toolbar PR.