Official Google answers to common SEO questions

Question:

How reliable is the 'site:domain.com' query in determining the number of pages in the Google index?

Google's Matt Cutts answers:

Summary of the answer:

The summary of the answer is available to paid members. Become a member now. It's fast, easy and risk-free.

Answered: 21 September 2010. Views: 1,102.

Related questions:

Question	Views
The Sitemap.xml file states there are 10,000 URLs but only 1500 have been indexed. After numerous crawls it does not appear Google is going to index these additional detail pages. What can I do to get Google to index my unique and current detail pages.	1,181
"Real-time indexation" on Google, when we use site:www.sitename.com; is this a possibility in the near future?	947
I have a client who was hacked. The SEO consultant said things were cleaned up, but they weren't correctly. All 30,000 viagra/cialis type and paid links have been removed, but no improvement in SERPs. We send reconsideration. What do we do now?	1,255
A question to non-intended duplicate content: If an online shop can be reached through several TLDs (like .de, .at, .ch) and the only difference is the currency (and necessarily the checkout process) does Google consider this duplicate content?	1,028
Seeing as the "link:" search query is hardly ever accurate, what would your favorite/preferred way to check for inbound links be if you were a webmaster?	1,070
Is there a limit to the number of pages that Google will index from one site?	1,165
Site hacks have been on the rise, especially in CMS platforms like Joomla and WordPress. If our site was hacked and damage was done by the hackers (doorway pages inserted and spammed) but removed within days do we have to worry about a penalty?	968
Can Google provide a way to mark a section of our pages as being less important for being indexed/snippeted by Google?	1,157
Google Search Tips	957
How can Googlebot crawl and index pages that don't have any links to them on my website?	1,112