Google Testing Dropping Results Count After Moving It Under Search Tools

In May, Google moved the search results estimated count (the about X results) section to only display it after you click on the “tools” search option. Well, now, in some browsers, for some people, that results count is completely missing since last week.

Google told us after it would not remove the site command from Google Search, Google said the same in 2017. Google even said they would fight to keep it despite the site command’s flaws.

But we’ve seen bugs and tests where Google has removed the estimated count, numerous times and it seems it is happening again.

Glenn Gabe wrote about it going missing on some versions of Chrome, Firefox and other browsers last week on X. He said, “Heads-up, a site query isn’t yielding the number of results anymore. Clicking the “Tools” link was the way to continue to see the number of urls after Google implemented changes last year. I hope that’s a bug. See before and after below.”

I still see it on and off in Safari and Chrome – here is my screenshot with it showing and not showing on Safari in normal mode versus private mode:

So maybe Google is testing removing it or maybe there is a sort of bug with some browsers not rendering it?

It is in the code:

Barry, aside from my silly jokes… It’s currently still there, but hidden. pic.twitter.com/r8b4GaQIF6

— John Kirker (@jkirker) November 5, 2024

Forum discussion at X.