6 weeks ago we covered that the site command is sticking around despite other Google operators going away slowly. But then, a week or so ago, Google sent out a survey on the site command asking what you use it for. Speculation started up again that the site command/operator may be on the chopping block at Google.
Gary Illyes from Google quickly shut that down again on Twitter last night saying the site command is not being deprecated and strongly said, once again, that if Google was even thinking about doing so, he and his team would fight it.
@jennyhalasz @ZLDoty @rustybrick site: is NOT being deprecated and we'd fight very hard to not let it reach that state
— Gary Illyes ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ (@methode) March 16, 2017
So no need to panic.
Like I said before, the feature is not just valuable to SEOs and webmasters but also very valuable to searchers, which is why I think it will stay.
Of course, the number of returned results for the site command is not all that valuable, but it is value for many other reasons.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
