Where are all those thousands of other results?

[tepa]

I just searched for something on Google and Google told me there are about 42,200 results. So why is it that I can only view about 85 of them, even if I request 'more results'? Isn't there any way to see the other 42,115 results?
Is the number 42,200 accurate at all--or are there really just 85? Hmm....
Very puzzled.

[gingercaily]

what do you mean? result per page?

[tepa]

No, the total number of results printed in the upper right hand on the results page. For example I just now searched "under the basement door" and was told that there are about 19,300 results. But when I attempt to look at them, there turn out to be only 53. When I asked Google to incuded the omitted results, the total rose to 76. Pretty big gap between 19,300 and 76.

But this is entirely typical. Try it yourself. So where are the other 19,224 results...why can't we look at them? And if the figure 19,300 is only an estimate, how on earth could it be off by a factor of 254? That's an estimate non one can do anything with. If I estimated my age that way, I'd be saying I'm 14,986 years old!

[x3mario]

I just searched for something on Google and Google told me there are about 42,200 results. So why is it that I can only view about 85 of them, even if I request 'more results'? Isn't there any way to see the other 42,115 results?
Is the number 42,200 accurate at all--or are there really just 85? Hmm....
Very puzzled.

You are trying to view results more than 85 but google won't display on that. Hmmmmmm....it's really a puzzle. I never encounter like this kind of problem.

[leftybogs]

yah.... its weird... try to clear your cookies..

[tepa]

I've got my friends trying the same search on their home computers. They all have the same problem. So I'm afraid it's not cookies. And it doesn't matter what you search, the problem exists for almost any search. Let's try one...

"butter on the left"

When I search this, there are "about 23,000" results, according to Google.
But only a maximum of 55 can be displayed on screen. The rest seem to have disappeared. Try it and please tell me how many you can view.

[Aleksandr(Sasha)]

Well, I've been trying different things: it only seems to do this with quoted text. For example, I tried searching:
abase abash abate abacus badger administrator
It said there was 637 results; as I approached last page, it kept decreasing them one at a time occasionally, so by the end there was 634. Not a bad estimate.

[alex-party]

Google has estimated total of XXX results, but not all worth to be displayed. I think, the rest links are "Supplementals", which google don't show anymore, that means worthless "web sites". Imagine it as Google "filtering mechanism". To find how it works, ask google or try digging further on other forums about it

[Aleksandr(Sasha)]

I really don't think there's *hundreds* of useless results for every useful one.

[aira]

The number of results shown in the upper right corner of the result pages could just be the estimated amount of pages that contains the terms being searched in the query. Google will only show the pages that are closest and relevant to what is being searched since they are using Latent Semantic Indexing (a process to determines the keywords and how they are used in a certain web page)...