Search Results Number Doubles - but only for a few months

[dailypress]

I googled a term that had 30M results, then for a few months after the name was publicized on the news the results showed ~60M results.

Now, the search results number is back down to 30M results.

How does that work? Funny, that today is shows even less results!

[tedster]

You've brought up one of the "mysteries of Google's back end". Since all we can ever see is the top 1,000 it's impossible to say what those numbers mean when they change - especially because they are "about" numbers and not exact numbers. As we see on site: operator results, the "about" number can be way off!

I do think that "fresh results" storage comes into play - I haven't watched, but I'll bet that the Michael Jackson [webmasterworld.com] numbers have been bumping round.

[dailypress]

Thanks for your response. I had thought those numbers were almost exact until today when I noticed it dropped more than 50% in a few months for my specific keywords!