5 ms·

> Google returns over 600,000 results Tip: The result count estimate on the first result page is often off by several orders of magnitude. Often it's possible

by mortehu 12y ago

> Google returns over 600,000 results Tip: The result count estimate on the first result page is often off by several orders of magnitude. Often it's possible to navigate to the end of the results pretty quickly, and the number drops to something like 469: https://www.google.com/search?q="time+to+make+some+plans+for+the+future+and"+"time+to+be+happy"&num=100&safe=off&start=500 https://www.google.com/search?q="time+to+make+some+plans+for...

devindotcom 12y ago
Yeah, I'm curious about that. My guess is it has 600,000 results for things it thinks matches your query, based on how it interpreted it. But if it's not in the top 10 or 20, your query must be interpreted more strictly, and synonyms or slight misspellings or related pages fall off the radar.
strathmeyer 12y ago
515,000 of the results are youtube comments.
guelo 12y ago
It's so annoying when people use that useless number to make a point. Journalists do it all the time.
- pdabbadabba 12y ago
  I agree that is's annoying when journalists do it to demonstrate that a topic is important/controversial/etc. But I'm not sure there's anything wrong with it when the point being made it literally (and only) about the number of times a specific piece of text appears on the Internet.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    The number is wrong so using it to make a point about the number of times a phrase appears on the Internet is sub-optimal.
toephu2 12y ago
why is that?
- adventured 12y ago
  Google knows people rarely browse beyond the first few pages of results. Everything else is derived from the days when it was important to show off how big your archive is. They're basically still performing that vanity game. 600,000 results, nearly all of which are of such low quality it'd be embarrassing for Google to show off what they pretend is a valid result so they can fake a large result count (but they know users don't go there, so it doesn't matter).
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - lrem 12y ago
    I'm rather inclined to believe this is an artefact of the algorithm, something like: 1) grab index for each word in the query 2) grab first x results from each index 3) cross these to filter down to actual matches I believe step 3 is as expensive as rendering the results AND nobody would like to wait for rendering 600k results before getting some of it. This they stick with some simple estimate, like max(size of found indices), or average or whatnot.
    - Bill_Dimm 12y ago
      Seems like a reasonable hypothesis, but you can easily prove that it's wrong by doing a search for a single word, so there is no step (3). I did a search for "hackerspace" (no quotes) and it claims "About 588,000 results." Paging through the results, I eventually got "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 390 already displayed." Even with omitted entries included, there only seems to be 832 results.
      - kuschku 12y ago
        Yes, cause you are getting customized results. Try http://www.google.com/custom?q=hackerspace&num=100&safe=off&prmd=ivns&ei=-avkVLmtHYXsO5DlgfAC&start=800&sa=N&filter=0 http://www.google.com/custom?q=hackerspace&num=100&safe=off&... it will show you that they actually found those thousands of results, but only if you search with an older algorithm.
kzrdude 12y ago
I don't get that. I clicked your link, then the first results page, and now I'm browsing result pages 10, 15, 25, 30 for some reason and it doesn't stop.
- runeks 12y ago
  It only goes to page 30 for me: https://www.google.dk/search?q=%22time+to+make+some+plans+for+the+future+and%22+%22time+to+be+happy%22&num=20&biw=1237&bih=662&ei=s4_kVPy9A4XuUPCShNAP&start=567&sa=N&filter=0 https://www.google.dk/search?q=%22time+to+make+some+plans+fo...
  - kuschku 12y ago
    Google has customized results, every person gets a different amount of pages in differing ranking.
    - cben 12y ago
      Personalization should affect ranking, but not so much the total set of results. Domain, language & safe search prefs could. I wonder if the dedup filter can vary a lot (did the results end in "similar results omitted"?).
rsanek 12y ago
>In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 471 already displayed. >If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22time+to+make+some+plans+for+the+future+and%22+%22time+to+be+happy%22&num=100&safe=off&filter=0&biw=1720&bih=987 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22time+to+make+some+plans+f...

by mortehu 12y ago

devindotcom 12y ago

Yeah, I'm curious about that. My guess is it has 600,000 results for things it thinks matches your query, based on how it interpreted it. But if it's not in the top 10 or 20, your query must be interpreted more strictly, and synonyms or slight misspellings or related pages fall off the radar.

strathmeyer 12y ago

515,000 of the results are youtube comments.

guelo 12y ago

It's so annoying when people use that useless number to make a point. Journalists do it all the time.

pdabbadabba 12y ago
I agree that is's annoying when journalists do it to demonstrate that a topic is important/controversial/etc. But I'm not sure there's anything wrong with it when the point being made it literally (and only) about the number of times a specific piece of text appears on the Internet.
- DanBC 12y ago
  The number is wrong so using it to make a point about the number of times a phrase appears on the Internet is sub-optimal.

toephu2 12y ago

why is that?

adventured 12y ago
Google knows people rarely browse beyond the first few pages of results. Everything else is derived from the days when it was important to show off how big your archive is. They're basically still performing that vanity game. 600,000 results, nearly all of which are of such low quality it'd be embarrassing for Google to show off what they pretend is a valid result so they can fake a large result count (but they know users don't go there, so it doesn't matter).
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- lrem 12y ago
  I'm rather inclined to believe this is an artefact of the algorithm, something like: 1) grab index for each word in the query 2) grab first x results from each index 3) cross these to filter down to actual matches I believe step 3 is as expensive as rendering the results AND nobody would like to wait for rendering 600k results before getting some of it. This they stick with some simple estimate, like max(size of found indices), or average or whatnot.
  - Bill_Dimm 12y ago
    Seems like a reasonable hypothesis, but you can easily prove that it's wrong by doing a search for a single word, so there is no step (3). I did a search for "hackerspace" (no quotes) and it claims "About 588,000 results." Paging through the results, I eventually got "In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 390 already displayed." Even with omitted entries included, there only seems to be 832 results.
    - kuschku 12y ago
      Yes, cause you are getting customized results. Try http://www.google.com/custom?q=hackerspace&num=100&safe=off&prmd=ivns&ei=-avkVLmtHYXsO5DlgfAC&start=800&sa=N&filter=0 http://www.google.com/custom?q=hackerspace&num=100&safe=off&... it will show you that they actually found those thousands of results, but only if you search with an older algorithm.

kzrdude 12y ago

I don't get that. I clicked your link, then the first results page, and now I'm browsing result pages 10, 15, 25, 30 for some reason and it doesn't stop.

runeks 12y ago
It only goes to page 30 for me: https://www.google.dk/search?q=%22time+to+make+some+plans+for+the+future+and%22+%22time+to+be+happy%22&num=20&biw=1237&bih=662&ei=s4_kVPy9A4XuUPCShNAP&start=567&sa=N&filter=0 https://www.google.dk/search?q=%22time+to+make+some+plans+fo...
- kuschku 12y ago
  Google has customized results, every person gets a different amount of pages in differing ranking.
  - cben 12y ago
    Personalization should affect ranking, but not so much the total set of results. Domain, language & safe search prefs could. I wonder if the dedup filter can vary a lot (did the results end in "similar results omitted"?).

rsanek 12y ago

>In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 471 already displayed. >If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22time+to+make+some+plans+for+the+future+and%22+%22time+to+be+happy%22&num=100&safe=off&filter=0&biw=1720&bih=987 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22time+to+make+some+plans+f...