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Google Inc. claims its search engines scour three times more Web sites than Yahoo Inc. and other nearest competitors.
Its difficult, however, to compare the size of search engines indexes of Web sites, given that some listings are inaccessible or duplicative.
Google, which made the claim late Monday, said it now plans to stop publicly disclosing the size of its Web index, which it once said topped 8 billion, in part because of growing dissatisfaction over the accuracy of the statistic. It may also be bowing to pressure from search engine watchers that argue that relevance of the results, and not the size of their index, is a more meaningful metric.
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Nonetheless, Googles size boast is the latest public disclosure by a major search engine about its index, seen as a measure of effectiveness. In August, Google rival Yahoo said its search engine scours 19 billion Web pages, meaning it would be the largest.
Google discounts Yahoos disclosure.
Google made its boast on its seventh birthday, which the search market leader is celebrating by adding seven slices of candle-adorned cake onto its main Web site, www.google.com.
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