Google Search Pagination Bug – Showing Too Few Pages

If you search for [bbc news] and some other queries on Google Search you might run into a weird bug with Google’s pagination. Scroll down to the footer where you can go to the next page of results (like anyone does that) and you will see only a few pages, when there should be probably countless pages.

This was spotted first by Andy Beard on Twitter and I can replicate – but he saw two pages, I see three, here is my screenshot followed by his:

Is this new?

Yeah I know I have a multi-year gap in my observations, but I didn’t stop Googling…

[BBC News] = millions of pages and references

Only 2 pages of actual results

Can’t repeat it for [CNN News]

Just a quirk?

CC: @rustybrick @brodieseo @glenngabe pic.twitter.com/1M2e7aFb6b

— Andy Beard (@AndyBeard) September 14, 2021

Danny Sullivan from Google has reported it and said on Twitter still checking in this but yes, I imagine it’s a weird bug.”

I was off yesterday so still checking in this but yes, I imagine it’s a weird bug.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) September 15, 2021

So Google is investigating. We’ve seen weird bugs like this before and it is always fun to find one offs with Google Search.

Forum discussion at Twitter.