Danny Sullivan, Google's Search Liaison, has finally explained why it has made it harder to find the results count when doing a Google Search. He said it can be a distraction and is something that researchers are focused on, when in reality, Google Trends provides better data for those researchers.
Sullivan wrote on Bluesky, "we do generally try to have results present the most immediately useful information. Counts tend to be something researchers are more interested in (caveat to come), so this was way to keep them available but not be distracting."
He added, "As that article references, counts are not necessarily a measure of interest or popularity of terms, plus they are really broad estimates. Google Trends is a far more robust tool for those interested in that stuff trends.google.com/trends/."
More recently, Google has been testing removing the results count completely, and not just hiding them under the tools menu.
Also, Google told us after it would not remove the site command from Google Search, Google said the same in 2017. Google even said they would fight to keep it despite the site command's flaws.
But we've seen bugs and tests where Google has removed the estimated count, numerous times and it seems it is happening again.
Here is how to find the results count - under "Tools":
Forum discussion at Bluesky.
