Ask HN: Why does Google Search sometimes return empty pages? Is it a bug?

9 points

5 years ago

For example, if you search for "why wikipedia is free" (with the double quotes, or you can use [1]) you should get:

- About 1,920 results - Pages 1, 2 & 3

Now, if you go on page 2, the page 3 will disappear from the list. If you go straight to page 3, it will be empty. Doing the latter is almost like a bug to me, because you are then on a potentially misleading page:

"Your search - "why wikipedia is free" - did not match any documents.

Suggestions:

    Make sure that all words are spelled correctly.
    Try different keywords.
    Try more general keywords."

Which is clearly not the case since my search has "about 1,920 results".

Why is Google showing that page 3 in the first place? Is it related to the location and intended or is it a bug?

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=%22why+wikipedia+is+free%22

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