I came across this article which says that a specially crafted Google search reveals more than 86,000 printers connected to the Internet.  As I was contemplating what documents I might want to send to random printers around the world, I noticed something odd.

At the top of the first page of results, it says "About 88,000 results" but only 12 are actually displayed.  When I went to the end of the search results there's a link which says "If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included."  OK, great.  Show me the 88,000!  So I click on that and now it says "About 88.400 results" but in reality it is only showing 68.  Considering the difference between 88,000 and 68, Google seems to have an extremely liberal definition of the word "about".  Or, maybe there really are 88,000 search results and Google has just decided "fuck you, we're not showing them to you."

Spoiler Alert:  I tried several links and got nothing but 404 and 500 errors.

Strange, using this query at home in the Dutch Google version returns more then 2 million results with countless pages, same search at work has the same problem you just described...

I have a general distrust of all search-related services.

For example, I was trying to stalk an old girlfriend on Facebook so I typed her name into the "Search" box at the top of the page. The instant prediction results were showing 5 profiles with that exact name, and at the bottom it had the link to "See more results", under which it said "Displaying top 8 results" (8 != 5). To make matters worse, when I clicked the "more results" link, the resulting page said "No results found for your query".

But I noticed the filter was set to "All results", so I clicked the "People" filter and boom, there's 25+ profiles with the name I searched for.

So why does it initially show 5 and tell me there's 8? Why doesn't the "All results" setting also show "People"? And why can't I find my ex girlfriend? I just want to know she's doing badly without me.

 If she has blocked you I figure then search won't return her name??

Manni_reloaded:

I have a general distrust of all search-related services.

For example, I was trying to stalk an old girlfriend on Facebook so I typed her name into the "Search" box at the top of the page. The instant prediction results were showing 5 profiles with that exact name, and at the bottom it had the link to "See more results", under which it said "Displaying top 8 results" (8 != 5). To make matters worse, when I clicked the "more results" link, the resulting page said "No results found for your query".

But I noticed the filter was set to "All results", so I clicked the "People" filter and boom, there's 25+ profiles with the name I searched for.

So why does it initially show 5 and tell me there's 8? Why doesn't the "All results" setting also show "People"? And why can't I find my ex girlfriend? I just want to know she's doing badly without me.

You're welcome.