Google's Results Bar Often Very Incorrect?

Nov 12, 2008 - 9:01 am 2 by
Filed Under Google

You know the results bar at Google? The one that says, Results 1 - 10 of about X for keyword? It looks like this:

Results Bar

Well, it is never much all that accurate. Some novice searchers look at that to compare how popular topic A is to topic B, but that really doesn't make much sense. In addition, it is often fairly buggy.

For example, a WebmasterWorld thread has some webmasters noticing the bar read, "Results 1-18 of about 13 results" or something like that.

You got that? 1 - 18, first of all, Google shows max 10 by default. And of 13, but showing 1-18? Doesn't make much sense.

This is not surprising to many of us. I typically ignore that bar anyway, and you should likely ignore it too, or at least, take it for what it is worth.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: February 3, 2026

Feb 3, 2026 - 10:00 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Search Algorithms, Spam Detections & Policies Don't Fundamentally Change With AI Search

Feb 3, 2026 - 7:51 am
Bing Search

Bing Multi-Turn Search Rolls Out Worldwide

Feb 3, 2026 - 7:41 am
Other Search Engines

ChatGPT With Top Stories & More Visual Knowledge Panels

Feb 3, 2026 - 7:31 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google's Top Crawling Challenges In 2025

Feb 3, 2026 - 7:21 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google: Don't Spend Too Much Time On Redirects Analysis For SEO

Feb 3, 2026 - 7:11 am
 
Previous Story: Disabling Google Sitelinks May Not Hide Them in Google.com