Google's Search Update: A Step Towards Simplification?

In February 2024, Google announced the removal of its cached page feature, which allowed users to view webpage content even when the website's server was down. This feature was originally designed to provide a backup of web pages indexed by Google's crawlers.

Google believes that with the advancement of web technology, many websites have improved their reliability, making the cached page feature redundant.

This week, Google Search made another significant change: it now hides the search result count by default. Users can only view the total number of search results by clicking on the tools navigation bar.

Hiding search result counts will not affect users' daily search experience. In fact, the search result count is merely a decorative feature, as users are unlikely to browse through millions of search results.

The search result count was previously used as a reference for certain data metrics. By hiding this data metric, Google seems to be phasing out traditional search engine practices. It's possible that Google will completely remove search result counts in the future, rather than just hiding them by default.

This change doesn't pose a significant problem for website operators, as they can still view their website's indexed page count using the "site:" command and Google Search Console. The data displayed is more accurate, and search results often include content from multiple websites.

Google has not provided an explanation for hiding search result counts, so let's wait and see what reason they come up with!