Site: Query Question
-
Hi All,
Question around the site: query you can execute on Google for example. Now I know it has lots of inaccuracies, but I like to keep a high level sight of it over time.
I was using it to also try and get a high level view of how many product pages were indexed vs. the total number of pages.
What is interesting is when I do a site: query for say www.newark.com I get ~748,000 results returned.
When I do a query for www.newark.com "/dp/" I get ~845,000 results returned.
Either I am doing something stupid or these numbers are completely backwards?
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Ben
-
Barry Schwartz posted some great information about this in November of 2010, quoting a couple of different Google sources. In short, more specific queries can cause Google to dig deeper and give more accurate estimates.
-
Yup. get rid of parameter laden urls and its easy enough. If they hang around the index for a few months before disappearing thats no big deal, as long as you have done the right thing it will work out fine
Also your not interested in the chaff, just the bits you want to make sure are indexed. So make sure thise are in sensibly titled sitemaps and its fine (used this on sites with 50 million and 100 million product pages. It gets a bit more complex at that number, but the underlying principle is the same)
-
But then on a big site (talking 4m+ products) its usually the case that you have URL's indexed that wouldn't be generated in a sitemap because they include additional parameters.
Ideally of course you rid the index of parameter filled URL's but its pretty tough to do that.
-
Best bet is to make sure all your urls are in your sitemap and then you get an exact count.
Ive found it handy to use multiple sitempas for each subfolder i.e. /news/ or /profiles/ to be able to quickly see exactly what % of urls are indexed from each section of my site. This is super helpful in finding errors in a specific section or when you are working on indexing of a certain type of page
S
-
What I've found the reason for this comes down to how the Google system works. Case in point, a client site I have with 25,000 actual pages. They have mass duplicate content issues. When I do a generic site: with the domain, Google shows 50-60,000 pages. If I do an inurl: with a specific URL param, I either get 500,000 or over a million.
Though that's not your exact situation, it can help explain what's happening.
Essentially, if you do a normal site: Google will try its best to provide the content within the site that it shows the world based on "most relevant" content. When you do a refined check, it's naturally going to look for the content that really is most relevant - closest match to that actual parameter.
So if you're seeing more results with the refined process, it means that on any given day, at any given time, when someone does a general search, the Google system will filter out a lot of content that isn't seen as highly valuable for that particular search. So all those extra pages that come up in your refined check - many of them are most likely then evaluated as less than highly valuable / high quality or relevant to most searches.
Even if many are great pages, their system has multiple algorithms that have to be run to assign value. What you are seeing is those processes struggling to sort it all out.
-
about 839,000 results.
-
Different data center perhaps - what about if you add in the "dp" query to the string?
-
I actually see 'about 897,000 results' for the search 'site:www.newark.com'.
-
Thanks Adrian,
I understand those areas of inaccuracy, but I didn't expect to see a refined search produce more results than the original search. That just seems a little bizarre to me, which is why I was wondering if there was a clear explanation or if I was executing my query incorrectly.
Ben
-
This is an expected 'oddity' of the site: operator. Here is a video of Matt Cutts explaining the imprecise nature of the site: operator.
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
-
High bounce rates consistent with a login that takes you to a 3rd party site?
My firm has a credit union client whose bounce rates skyrocketed after implementing an online banking portal. Logging in to the online banking portal takes you to a 3rd party site. Would arriving at the site and immediately logging in be considered a bounce? And if so, would a high bounce rate actually correlate with a warm reception to their online banking tool?
Reporting & Analytics | | TheKatzMeow0 -
Www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion_async.js what is this url doing on my site?
Hello Guys, I am using google tagmanager and i have configured adwords in tag manager now what i find is that this link - www.googleadservices.com/pagead/conversion_async.js showing on my homepage not in view source but when i do inspect element at that time it appears. So do you think after using google tag manager still i need to use the given link? Thanks, Raghu
Reporting & Analytics | | raghuvinder0 -
I want to upgrade to Universal Analytics but already using GTM and I have few queries...
Hello Experts, I want to migrate from classical to universal analytics and i am already using GTM for my ecommerce site. I have small 6 queries :- After login to google analytics from admin section i have to transfer property to universal analytics ? right? I have to wait either 24 hours or 48 hours before retagging or doing any changes in UA. So how can i know my property transferred sucessfully? After property transferred to universal analytics, i have to configure the session timeout and campaign timeout periods via the Google Analytics Admin page. ( By default,
Reporting & Analytics | | jackinmathis1
sessions end after 30 minutes and campaigns end after 6 months ) is it okay if i don't change this settings? As of now in my analytic i have configured google adwords, google webmaster and google merchant. In analytic i have also set custom alerts, goals, funnels, enchance link attribution, eCommerce etc but google analytics code i have already added in google tag manager, so i have to some manual changes for all such things? or all the things i.e goals, funnel, alerts etc will be transferred automatically at time of transferring the property? In Google tag manager i have already configured following things :- Tags :- Name - Google adwords Conversion Tracking b) Type - Adwords Conversion Tracking c) Rules - order sucessful page Name - Google Analytic Page view Tracking b) Type - Classic Google Analytics c) Rules - All pages Name - Google Analytic Conversion Tracking b) Type - Classic Google Analytics c) Rules - order sucessful page Name - Twitter Conversion Tracking b) Type - Custom HTML tag c) Rules - order sucessful page So at time of transferring property all this will be transferred automatically? Also at thank you page of my website I have scripts for goal setting, Affiliator, so there is no relation of this with migration right? Kind co-operation in the matter of highly be appreciated. So please help me! Regards,
Jackin!0 -
Why My Site Got 1000% increase in organic traffic from day to night?
Did Google run any update Monday or recently? My site www.shirts4geek.com, strangely had a 1000% organic traffic increase from day to night. I didn't do anything in this site for long a time... but Monday I had a lot traffic coming from organic and every other day this week the site is doing extremely well on traffic and sales. I'm ranking first page for many keywords relate to my products. I wish I could figure out what happens so I can replicate it. The site has very links and the On Page Optimization is kind of basic. Does any have any idea how it could be possible? Have any one seen something similar lately?
Reporting & Analytics | | Felip30 -
Linking Multiple Niche Site In Same Google Analytics Account
Hi, I am providing SEO for Local business. Is it advisable to separate out the Google Analytics into different Google account or is it ok to remain it this way? Some of the client might be in the same niche, and might be competing with the same keywords as well. What I was worried is, Google might see these sites as same owner and only rank for 1 of the site. I was thinking to get the owners to register for their own Google Analytics and share the access to me.
Reporting & Analytics | | JonathanSoh0 -
Weird Analytics Question
Looking at a Google Analytics report for a client - Traffic Sources - Referrals - Landing Pages from one particular referrer. This one referral site is a large trade directory that links onto several deep pages of the site, but also links onto the homepage. Analytics is showing the one landing page as //index.html. That's 2 // - not one. If you click on the link, it's a 404. I've never seen this in Analytics before. I'm looking at the client's info on this trade directory site and I can't see a link that points to this 404. The majority of incoming traffic from this site is apparently coming to this //index.html page, so you'd think it would be coming from their main profile on the site. But it's not there. Also, if you had all this referral traffic coming to a 404, you'd expect a really high bounce rate, but it's not - it's average. The client also has a sister site also listed in this directory, and I'm not seeing this same issue in their Analytics. Is this just some weird glitch in Analytics?
Reporting & Analytics | | stevefidelity0 -
Site re-crawled?
I've fixed many of my errors, but they're still showing in my dashboard. When will the site be crawled again?
Reporting & Analytics | | sakeith0 -
Google Analytics question
Hi, I recently relaunched my site on a wordpress CMS. The relaunch has gone well except for a category of traffic within Google Analytics which is referral traffic from google.co.uk (its a UK site) which has dropped off hugely. The non-paid search traffic from google.co.uk is the same or better than it was. Can anyone tell me what the difference is between referral traffic from google.co.uk and non-paid search traffic from google.co.uk. Thanks for your help. Ben
Reporting & Analytics | | benacuity0