From 3 billion to 4+ billion indexed pages

Does it really matter? An Article in CNN today reports that Google has indexed an additional billion pages for its web search engine. This news comes as Google and Yahoo! prepare to split ways -- Yahoo! had been sourcing web searching out to Google, but with purchases of search technology providers like Inktomi, Yahoo! is poised to roll out its own search technology.

The real question is whether or not the number of pages indexed really matters to people performing searches. My answer, no, not really. What I care about as an Internet searcher is how relevant the results that I receive are. I don't want to have to click through multiple pages of search results; I do want the first 10 results on the page to be the most relevant to what I asked the search engine to search for.

The people that benefit in the greatest way from increased competition in the search industry are the consumers. Increased competition will lead to increased innovation and, hopefully, more relevant search results. The best part is that the consumers get to use the product for free.

Don't believe me on the relevancy of indexed pages? Ok, here's a quote from the article above (person quoted is Chris Winfield, an expert on the Internet search industry):

"'Having all those extra pages in the index really isn't going to make much difference for average users, but it cements in their minds that Google has the best search engine out there and the company isn't just resting on its laurels,' Winfield said. "