General Question

Mimishu1995's avatar

Does Google display all the result it finds on the internet?

Asked by Mimishu1995 (23624points) January 14th, 2014

Apart from results which are deliberately deleted, can all the websites on the internet containing the keywords we type on Google be displayed?
I have a feeling Google misses out some websites containing the keywords I search.

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7 Answers

PhiNotPi's avatar

There are a few limitations/requirements for websites to show up in Google.

Google gathers information through a web crawler. Basically, a computer visits a webpage, reads everything on that page, and then it follows the links on that page to find other webpages. In order to be “discovered,” a webpage must be linked to the rest of the internet. If no other websites link to your website, then Google will have no way of finding it.

Any content hidden behind logins will not be seen. Any websites which explicitely disallow Google will also not be visible.

A big thing is dynamic content, which is also invisible because it can only be found using certain queries, which Google does not know.

PhiNotPi's avatar

Here is a wiki article on the Deep Web which does a better job of explaining what is not visible to search engines like Google. It turns out that the vast majority of the entire internet is invisible.

elbanditoroso's avatar

Google doesn’t (can’t) see everything. It indexes what it can find (limited by the existence of a robots.txt file which closes off large segments of what’s out there.

But there are, as @PhiNotPi notes, huge portions of the internet that Google doesn’t even know about.

dxs's avatar

Googling Fluther questions and answers don’t always show up when I Google them.
Keep in mind, you are also in a communist country. I know China definitely filters the internet, there was a slaughtering because of it and nobody can access Facebook. I’m not sure what it’s like for you.

DWW25921's avatar

No. Google is smarter than that. Google compiles your likes and interests and gives responses on that basis. My google results would differ from yours. Looking up news, for example, I’ve never been to fox, cnn, nbc or the other propaganda networks. My searches come up with BBC articles and alternative media.

Mimishu1995's avatar

So if I can’t find what I expect to find on Google, there’s still a possibility that it is floating somewhere on the net?

DWW25921's avatar

@Mimishu1995 Yes. Upload a new browser and don’t log in and ask the question and you will get answers without filters. I find library computers useful too, although they tend to bring up a lot of government sites. A problem I have when I ask and answer questions here is I normally get answers related to my world view from google. That doesn’t help much in a debate.

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