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The number of pages in a search index and the number of results found were major selling points for search engines. I'd say that the count got carried forward i
by wolpoli 4y ago
The number of pages in a search index and the number of results found were major selling points for search engines. I'd say that the count got carried forward in the last 20 years.
- MichaelCollins 4y agoAs I said, it's for marketing. That's the explanation, but it's not an excuse. They should remove it, nobody is forcing them to keep it. They choose to keep it even though they know it's insanely inaccurate.
- wolpoli 4y agoYeah I agree it is an explanation. My 'nobody wanted to touch it in the last 2 decades' hypothesis isn't justification for keeping around either. Interestingly, I just did a search for "Google" and when I got to the page 36, the top changed to "Page 36 of 360 results" from "Page 35 of about 25,270,000,000 results".
- MichaelCollins 4y ago> My 'nobody wanted to touch it in the last 2 decades' hypothesis They must be porting it forward to new versions of their results page, right? The results page has changed a lot over the years. It might be a dusty forgotten decision to have it, but it can't be dusty forgotten code.
- wolpoli 4y agoYup. My 'nobody wanted to touch it in the last 2 decades' hypotheses was more referring to how the feature might have made sense in the earlier days when Google respects all the keywords in our search queries. As Google evolved, it became impossible to drill into those results, but there's no upside for any product manager to change/remove it.