# Google search fluke ?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-fluke/525023
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 15, 2010, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-fluke/525023 "2010-01-15T01:31:45Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@ToughLife](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToughLife)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2010, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-fluke/525023/1 "2010-01-15T01:31:45Z")
I’ve noticed that occasionally google announces a huge amount of hits on his top line
but returns much fewer actual links.
Example:
while searching for phrase “agree with you to look” ( don’t ask 🙂 )
I get:
**Results 1 - 10 of about 37,200,000 for “agree with you to look”. (0.10 seconds**)
but only 2 actual pages with about 11 links in total
[http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2009-08,GGLJ:en&q="agree+with+you+to+look"](http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLJ,GGLJ:2009-08,GGLJ:en&q=%22agree+with+you+to+look%22)
What gives ?
Thanks
---
### Author:  [@Apex\_Rogers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apex_Rogers)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2010, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-fluke/525023/2 "2010-01-15T01:40:05Z")
When I follow your link I get a single page of results.
> [@](#):
>
> Results 1 - 10 of 10 for “agree with you to look”. (0.24 seconds)
---
### Author:  [@statsman1982](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/statsman1982)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2010, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-fluke/525023/3 "2010-01-15T01:41:22Z")
Just popped in to tell the OP that it’s not just him/her getting this phenomenon.
---
### Author:  [@ToughLife](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ToughLife)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2010, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-fluke/525023/4 "2010-01-15T02:08:05Z")
> [@Apex\_Rogers](#):
>
> When I follow your link I get a single page of results.
that’s how it works for me ( smal word file)
[http://www.filedropper.com/doc1\_6](http://www.filedropper.com/doc1_6)
---
### Author:  [@j\_sum1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j_sum1)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2010, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-fluke/525023/5 "2010-01-15T02:44:04Z")
I think it has a lot to do with the quotes. There might be 37 mil pages that Google searched with all of those words, but only a comparatively small number with that particular combination in that order.
Removing the quotes gives 188 million pages (which presumably includes pages with most but not all of the words). The list of linked pages is… well, as large as you could possibly want.
---
### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2010, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-fluke/525023/6 "2010-01-15T02:53:15Z")
I think that without the quotes Google will only search for pages containing **agree** and **look** , and will ignore the other words as being too common.
---
### Author:  [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2010, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-fluke/525023/7 "2010-01-15T02:56:04Z")
Ha! I just tried it (with the quotes) and this thread is the first hit!
I also got “about 38,500,000” and just two pages, and the second page had just one link.
---
### Author:  [@EvilTOJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilTOJ)
#### Post date: [January 15, 2010, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/google-search-fluke/525023/8 "2010-01-15T08:18:47Z")
I got Results 1 - 12 of 12 for “agree with you to look”. (0.20 seconds) when I clicked on your link. At the bottom it said
In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 12 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.
So I clicked that link and got… Results 1 - 13 of 13