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When conducting competitor analysis, we use "site" command to get the indexed page number from a certain domain or a certain site.
But it seems that I cannot get the correct(or precise) number.

For example,

"site:sample.com", I get about 10000 results.
"site:a.sample.com" I get about 20000 results.

"a.sample.com" is a subset of "sample.com", i.e., the indexed page number of "site:a.sample.com" should be less than the indexed page number of "site:sample.com".

Do I misuse the "site" command?
Are there any other better solutions to get correct(or precise) indexed page number from a certain domain or a certain site?

Some people said that google search does not display all the indexed page results. Refer to this article: Why the number of indexed pages decreased for a “site:” search

Are there any official articles about this subject?

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    sample.com and a.sample.com are two separate sites and not one is a sub-set of another. See this answer for an idea of what the metrics mean: webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/72610/…
    – closetnoc
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 3:45
  • @closetnoc Thanks for sharing this information. It is a good answer for me, too.
    – Cythilya
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 10:00

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Are you talking about site:www.sample.com vs site:a.sample.com OR site:sample.com vs site:a.sample.com

Google usually shows all subdomains when you do site:sample.com including results from a.sample.com but if you do site:www.sample.com (where www is a subdomain), it shows only results from www.sample.com.

Even in case of site:sample.com vs site:a.sample.com, the results count may vary a lot because site: is not a reliable source of getting true number of indexed pages. I personally have seen large differences in indexed pages when comparing site: to webmasters count.

Are there any other better solutions to get correct(or precise) indexed page number from a certain domain or a certain site?

Google webmasters is precise but that's for websites you own. Also, how comparing 'count of indexed pages' of competitors is helpful to you? It's just a number indicating indexed pages with no bearing on ranking. Probably, the only helpful inference you can draw from it is how deeply google is indexing your competitor's website and I believe site: may be good enough indicator of that.

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  • Thanks for answering my question and let me re-examine it. I am curious about the following numbers of search results. "site:*.ruten.com.tw", I get about 667,000 results. "site:class.ruten.com.tw", I get about 4,310,000 results.
    – Cythilya
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 8:30
  • And...I use the "site" command to get the amount of the indexed page number from a certain domain or a certain site because I want to figure out how RSS and keyword directory affact google search indexing. For example, Newegg use RSS and Taobao use keyword directory. In my opinion, RSS is for search engines that index pages effectively, and keyword directory is benifit from link building and let pages rank better. That's why I ask this question.
    – Cythilya
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 8:31
  • For "site:*.ruten.com.tw", I get about 22 million results. For "site:class.ruten.com.tw", I get about 4.3 million results. Not sure, why you are getting so few results for "site:*.ruten.com.tw".
    – Aakash
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 8:56
  • I get about 22 million results, too. But I get about 669,000 by private surfing.
    – Cythilya
    Commented May 9, 2016 at 9:20

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