Sudden Change In Indexed Pages

[inhouseseo]

Every week I check the number of pages indexed by google using the "site:" function. I have set up a permanent redirect from all the non-www pages to www pages.

When I used to run the function for the:

non-www pages (i.e site:mysite.com), would have 12K results

www pages (i.e site:www.mysite.com) would have about 36K

The past few days, this has reversed! I get 12K for www pages, and 36K for non-www pages.

Things I have changed:

I have added canonical URL links in the header, all have www in the URL.

My questions:

Is this cause for concern?

Can anyone explain this to me?

[CareerBliss]

This is something I've been noticing greatly over the past few months. I was literally just about to post this question:

site: command, y u no accurate?!

I feel like the site:domain.com command used to be very accurate in showing you total pages indexed. Recently, I've seen wildly varied results returned.

Of course, it varies based upon the inclusion of "www.", but even without it, I've seen such results as anywhere from 193k to 8million pages... and everything in-between.

Why the variance? Has anyone else seen this recently?

[RobertFisher]

inhouseseo

I have looked at several of our sites and see no change in results for site:

You stated: **Things I have changed: **

I have added canonical URL links in the header, all have www in the URL.

I believe what is happening (assuming you changed the canonical URL prior to the change in results of site:) is the change is the result of the canonical application you have added. However, I am not sure how you could still have an aggregate of 48K pages, are you sure this is accurate?

If, you are showing 12K of www, and 36K of non www, I would guess that the 12K were duplicated within the 36K. Therefore, you would have only 36K pages on your site.

Typically, when we encounter a site that has both www and non-www we select a preferred domain in WMT and do the 301 redirect in .htaccess file. Once this is done, over a short period, we will have only what we have chosen as the preferred domain www or non www.

So, if we started with 1,000 pages of www and 2,000 of non www, then if preferred choice is non www. We will end up with 2,000 pages total.

My suggestion would be to go into WMT and select a preferred domain and do the 301 redirect in the .htaccess file. Once that is done, I believe your problem will be resolved. rel=canon will not accomplish this in and of itself. Give it a few weeks and check your results.

Best

[inhouseseo]

We did the 301 redirects from non-www to www when we launched the site.

I have another site that I have done a 301 from www to non-www, and you get 0 results when you search "site:www.mysite.com".

They are both on the same platform, which makes it more confusing!!!

[RobertFisher]

Have you done preferred domain in Google?

I don't know how you could have done the 301's and still get both resolving. Have you run xenu or some other program to insure the 301s are there?

[inhouseseo]

I don't get both resolving, and yes, I did set a preferred domain in my Google account.

Any other ideas?

[HandsomeWeb]

Maybe Google includes all sub-domains.  I just tested my site, and got the following results.

site:handsomeweb.com 340 results (all have www)

site:www.handsomeweb.com 231 results (all have www)

The difference is the first query includes pages located at:blog.handsomeweb.com