Site: on Google
-
Hello, people.
I have a quick question regarding search in Google.
I use search operator [site:url] to see indexing stauts of my site.
Today, I was checking indexing status and I found that Google shows different numbers of indexed pages depends on search setting.
1. At default setting (set as 10 search result shows)
> I get about 150 pages indexed by Google.
2. I set 100 results shows per page and tried again.
> I get about 52 pages indexed by Google.
Of course I used same page URL.
I really want to know which data is accurate. Please help people!!
-
Thanks for sharing your tip.
-
The site: and other results are often just estimates that get refined when you put in additional information or change the parameters.
If you left your search displaying ten results and went to the next page, you'd likely have a change in the total number of results displayed. This will happen (or at least did) happen on Bing as well.
Google does give some more accurate data if you verify your site in Google Webmaster Tools. If you verify your site and submit a sitemap, you can see how many URLs are indexed out of how many you submitted for that map.
Another way to judge what's in the index is go to your analytics program, look at organic traffic from Google, and look at the URLs that are receiving organic traffic.
-
It does seem that the numbers change for different numbers of results, but as Russ mentioned, they are indications/estimates.
What I'd be more interested in is which pages Google Webmaster Tools knows about from your sitemap.xml (since these are the pages that you consider important). With a larger site you could also split your sitemaps into sections to give easier analysis of which sections are poorly indexed.
For more resources on URL parameters:
http://searchengineland.com/google-power-user-tips-query-operators-48126
http://searchengineland.com/google-power-user-tips-serp-url-parameters-49736
-
I'm not sure why Google's results would depend on how many results you're showing, but if either setting shows a URL, then it must be indexed, right?
Also of note, if you're interested in getting indexed in Bing too, I'd recommend setting up their webmaster tools as you can submit 10 URLs a day, and up to 50 URLs a month, to be indexed if Bing hasn't indexed your site yet.
-
Neither of the results are accurate as they are both representative of sampling and estimations made by Google, which is doing its best to find your site's pages out of the trillions of URLs they have indexed.
If you are just trying to get a general count of how many pages Google knows about, I would try this...
http://www.google.com/search?q=site:yoursite.com+inurl:yoursite.com&filter=0
just replace yoursite.com in the URL with your actual domain name (make sure you do it both times).
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Ranking on google but not Bing?
Any reason why I could be ranking for Google but not Bing?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | edward-may0 -
Google Penalty - Has It Been Lifted?
Hi, We have been trying to remove a ‘partial’ google penalty for a new client by the way of removing unnatural backlinks over a period of time and then submitting a reconsideration request, and uploading a disavow file etc. Previously Google listed the partial penalty in the ‘manual actions’ section of webmaster tools, making it possible for us to submit a reconsideration request. Having just logged in however we get the message ‘no manual webspam actions found’. So there isn’t any way we can submit a reconsideration request. Does this mean that the penalty has been lifted? Or could it still exist? If the latter is there any other way to submit a reconsideration request? Many thanks in advance, Lee.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Webpresence0 -
Does Google only look at LSI per page or context of the Site?
From what I have read i should optimise each page for a keyword/phrase, however, I read recently that google may also look at the context of the site to see if there are other similar words. For example i have different pages optimised for Funeral Planning, funeral plans, funeral plan costs, compare funeral plans, why buy a funeral plan, paying for a funeral, prepaid funeral plans. Is this the best strategy when the words/phrases are so close or should i go for longer pages with the variations on one page or at least less pages? Thanks Ash
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AshShep10 -
Why Did My Site Go Limp On Me?
One of my clients was once in the #1 position for "Philadelphia interior designer" and other related terms, but her site has dropped significantly. Still it is on the first page, but far from its former glory. http://www.interiorsbydonnahoffman.com is the site. What really confuses me is why in her home turf search of "Bucks County Interior Designer" a competitor, http://www.miriamansellinteriors.com, is above her in the SERPS. According to OSE her competitor has a PA of 32 vs my client's 39. My client has 35 Linking Root Domains (and some of high quality) compared to just 11 for the competition. In all aspects her competitor looks weaker and less relevant to me. Her site has been weak in the SERPs since May/June. We are redesigning her site- she has a high bounce rate compared to my other interior design clients, something like 55%. Any insights from y'all?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | dfhytrwy0 -
Any Suggestions For My Site?
I've recently started a website that is based on movie posters. The site has fundamentally been built for users and not SEO but I'm wondering if anyone can see any problems or just general advice that may help with our SEO efforts? The "content" on the website are the movie posters. I know Google likes text content, but I don't see what else we could add that wouldn't be purely for SEO. My site is: http://www.bit.ly/ZSPbTA
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | whispertera0 -
Site rankings down
Our site is over 10 years old and has consistently ranked highly in google.co.uk for over 100 key phrases. Until the middle of April, we were 7th for 'nuts and bolts' and 5th for 'bolts and nuts' - we have been around these positions for 5-6 years easily now. Our rankings dropped mid-April, but now (presumably as a result of Penguin 2.0), we've seen larger decreases across the board. We are now 5th page on 'nuts and bolts', and second page on 'bolts and nuts'. Can anyone please shed any light on this? Although we'd fallen some before Penguin 2.0, we've fallen quite a bit further since. So I'm wondering if it's that. We do still rank well on our more specialised terms though - 'imperial bolts', 'bsw bolts', 'bsf bolts', we're still top 5. We've lost out with the more generic terms. In the past we did a bit of (relevant) blog commenting and obtained some business directory links, before realising the gain was tiny if at all. Are those likely to be the issue? I'm guessing so. It's hard to know which to get rid of though! Now, I use social media sparingly, just Facebook, Twitter and G+. The only linkbuilding I do now is by sending polite emails to people who run classic car clubs that would use our bolts, stuff like that. I've had a decent response from that, and a few have become customers directly. Here's our link profile if anyone would be kind enough as to have a look: http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/links?site=www.thomassmithfasteners.com Also, SEOMOZ says we have too many links on our homepage (107) - the dropdown navigation is the culprit here. Should I simply get rid of the dropdown and take users to the categories? Any advice here would be appreciated before I make changes! If anyone wants to take a look at the site, the URL is in the link profile above - I'm terrified of posting links anywhere now! Thanks for your time, and I'd be very grateful for any advice. Best Regards, Stephen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | stephenshone1 -
Google & Bing not indexing a Joomla Site properly....
Can someone explain the following to me please. The background: I launched a new website - new domain with no history. I added the domain to my Bing webmaster tools account, verified the domain and submitted the XML sitemap at the same time. I added the domain to my Google analytics account and link webmaster tools and verified the domain - I was NOT asked to submit the sitemap or anything. The site has only 10 pages. The situation: The site shows up in bing when I search using site:www.domain.com - Pages indexed:- 1 (the home page) The site shows up in google when I search using site:www.domain.com - Pages indexed:- 30 Please note Google found 30 pages - the sitemap and site only has 10 pages - I have found out due to the way the site has been built that there are "hidden" pages i.e. A page displaying half of a page as it is made up using element in Joomla. My questions:- 1. Why does Bing find 1 page and Google find 30 - surely Bing should at least find the 10 pages of the site as it has the sitemap? (I suspect I know the answer but I want other peoples input). 2. Why does Google find these hidden elements - Whats the best way to sort this - controllnig the htaccess or robots.txt OR have the programmer look into how Joomla works more to stop this happening. 3. Any Joomla experts out there had the same experience with "hidden" pages showing when you type site:www.domain.com into Google. I will look forward to your input! 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JohnW-UK0 -
Does Google crawl the pages which are generated via the site's search box queries?
For example, if I search for an 'x' item in a site's search box and if the site displays a list of results based on the query, would that page be crawled? I am asking this question because this would be a URL that is non existent on the site and hence am confused as to whether Google bots would be able to find it.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | pulseseo0