Google, the Site command and 260?

15 Feb 2007 @ 10:22 AM

Running some reports for various sites that I oversee I noticed a strange occurrence when using the site: command. Several of them that had previously had many thousands of pages indexed suddenly were only showing 260 pages indexed, the same number - 260 - was showing for all of them.

The first one showed me the following stats as the result of the query:-

So only 5 were showing, with the ‘click here to view omitted results’ text at the bottom. Clicking on the text didn’t show me the other 255, it instead showed me the following:-

Maybe it’s a supplemental index issue, I thought to myself. Flipping through the pages to test this theory I got deep into the 700’s, and I still hadn’t seen that piece of green text to inform me that I’d finally found the first supplemental result. Strange. Ok, on to the next one. The Site: command returned the following:-

Clicking on the ‘omitted results’ text gave me the following:-

Again, well into the 700’s and no sign of my first supplemental. So why is Google reporting 260? Why doesn’t it report either the total number of pages in the index (as it did for my other sites), or heck just even the number in the main index with an option to add in the supplemental?

Update: Google has admitted that this is a known bug, and will be fixing it over the next few weeks. There’s a write up on Marketing Pilgrim about it too.