Google Site Command Inflated?

Aug 23, 2005 - 9:21 am 2 by

One of my favorite commands in Google is the site:www.domain.com command. If I wanted to see all pages indexed by Google (or most other engines) you simply type in site:www.domain.com. So for example, if I wanted to see all the pages MSN Search indexed of MSN Search Results (laugh out loud), you go to search.msn.com and plug in site:search.msn.com to get 50,077,341. Now, this work well on Google, as well.

I prefer to use the syntax at Google, allinurl:www.google.com site:www.google.com, it tends to order the pages in order of popularity this way (no proof, of course). You will also notice that Google doesn't index its own SERPs, like MSN does. A forum thread at WebmasterWorld asks, Why are "Site:" command pages inflated? Members lammert, g1smd, and bull all provide solid answers, which I will quote below.

  • URLs temporarily deleted with the URL removal tool
  • URLs from other sites doing a 302 hijack of your site (should be fixed by now)
  • Obsolete URLs which have still links to them from other sites and which Google visits now and then just to see of they are active
  • Links to your site with typos in it i.e. www.yourdomain.com/fiel.html instead of www.yourdomain.com/file.html. At one time I had many copies of my sitemap in the SERPs because I used the sitemap as my 404 page. Except for the original sitemap they now all went supplemental, but Google still counts them.
  • URLs that have been marked with "noindex,follow".
  • Serving both www and non-www but without a redirect.
  • Items crawled by the Mozilla Googlebot only.

Add also that Google also shows the supplemental index in that count, not in the API results but in the normal Web search results. Also, you might think you have X pages on a dynamic site, but you can have a infinite number of pages generated through a dynamically driven Web site.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Google Core Update Rumbling, Manual Actions FAQs, Core Web Vitals Updates, AI, Bing, Ads & More - YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 18, 2024

Mar 18, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Google Updates

Google Urges Patience As The March 2024 Core Update Continues To Rollout

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google

Official: Google Replaces Perspective Filter With Forums Filter

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles Now Offers Additional Review After Appeal Is Denied

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

EU Searchers Complaining About Google Maps Features Changes Related To DMA

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google

Google Showing Fewer Sitelinks Within Search

Mar 18, 2024 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Ask Jeeves Gets Smarter with More Smart Answers