3,083,324,652 web pages

Question about the total number of pages indexed by Google.

[jazza_2000]

Looking at the front page of Google I see "Searching 3,083,324,652 web pages".

I thought that I'd look up these figures and see if I could find out how this has changed over the months.

To my surprise, I have found forum entries (on this forum) from way back in November 2002 which quote this exact figure.

Has it really not changed? Or have Google just not updated it, and if not why not? Why have the information there if it is not correct? I see that they quote to the single page and not an estimate like on serps...

[manilla]

Yes it has changed. Google has just not updated this figure.

[manilla]

seacrh on the word "the" shows 3.44 billion results (depending upon shich version of www, etc.)

[jazza_2000]

I guessed so. So why do they have a figure that is at least 8 months out of date on their home page? Seems rather unprofessional to me.

[takagi]

They will update if the number is above a nice target like 4 billion. Before they had numbers like 1,060,000,000 and 2,073,418,204 and now it is 3,083,324,652 (see more on this [webmasterworld.com] thread). You can see the pattern? x billion + margin of few percent.

[vitaplease]

I think they think its cool to be modest.

Part of it could also be whilst a search for "the" gives more results, part of it could just be the urls, but not the pages as their content would not really be indexed due to robot indexing exclusion.

Such as a search for: allinanchor: "subscribe to the" would show.

also: [webmasterworld.com...]

their was another recent post on this subject stating that Google generally updates that number every half year or so, which could be checked with the wayback archive.

[jazza_2000]

Sure, just funny to be accurate to the single page but also be out of date.

I know this is of no consequence what-so-ever, but perhaps for the record they should either say "about 3,100,000,000" or perhaps "As of 12th Oct 2002: 3,083,324,652 web pages".

Just a thought.

[shaadi]

I guess you been to that Funny little site, who's owner lost a watch which had Google on it. And now complaining about some one who is selling it out by using Adwords - when one searches for his site.

;)

[WibbleWobble]

perhaps "As of 12th Oct 2002: 3,083,324,652 web pages".

This would surely be worse? Currently, the average user won't know or care how many more than three billion are indexed, but by stating its as of 12th of october, it makes the data look hideously out of date; and as both webmasters and google know, fresh content is what people want.

[ncsuk]

They should spider index pages faster after sumbmission then.

[jazza_2000]

WibbleWobble - this is my exact point - it is hideously out of date!