While many users use the Site: Search operator from Google for indicative purposes; it is not advisable for use in getting key insights like the ranking of the website or for understanding the ranking aspect of the algorithm of Google. Google has now forewarned that this particular operator has been unplugged from the search engine’s algorithm.
Google has therefore warned users from over-depending on the site: search operator. Reasons are as below:
- The result that is generated from the use of Site: Search is not dependable because it is not complete. The operator result also cannot be trusted because it has been found to generate different results for different browser types.
- The results generated from the site: search operator is highly haphazard and quite arbitrary making the result highly unreliable. The results provided by the Google search engine on using this search indicator are not quite professionally-driven. The results that feature on the first page shows links and site addresses that brands would not typically want to feature – not at least in the first few ranks on the search result page.
Google mentions that the Search operators like the Site: Search is meant for only specific work, which is quite limited in its role. And the role that they play is usefully not a part of the core algorithm.
The advanced search operators have been around for almost 16 to 17 years now. And, marketers have been trying to correlate the search results on a standard search page and in the allintitle SERP for long now. Ending all doubts and the never-ending debate, Google has finally come out in the open and proclaimed that the Site: Search operator is not connected to the algorithm anymore and that the platform’s Search Console is more dependable and reliable for organic results.
Mr. John Mueller from Google answered in a query in Twitter on whether the first result on the search result based on ‘Site: domain.cm keyword’ is the best link against the query or is it simply a random link result. John said that the site-queries and results are mostly artificial and marketers should not go ahead and make any assumptions the same.
All this discussion in a nutshell means that the site: search operator should not be used by brands and marketers to judge the ranking of their sites. If their site ranks high, it should not be interpreted as doing good on SEO aspects and if it ranks anywhere on the first page, it should not be assumed that the site is being recommended by the search engine.
This is because the site: Search is not part of the Google algorithm and hence any results from this operator should never be taken as authentic and real. In fact, John Muelller mentioned that not only are the results artificial, they are far from being accurate and are usually off the precision scale by a factor of ten to hundred. He says that the site indicator is not an all-inclusive factor. The search results from the Search Console are rather much more accurate and hence should be depended upon by users.
