Hi All,

I've just noticed that Google has dropped the number of indexed pages for one of my very competitive keywords from 208,000,000 to 23,000,000. Anyone else noticing similar symptoms??

thanks

Some people are saying that google has rolled back its index. Whether that's true, and to what exent I don't know.

There are definately some strange goings on with G...maybe the result of BigDaddy? Who knows. There's nothing on Matt Cutts blog except that there is a meeting, but I'm sure G has several meetings. Just waiting to see what happens. Maybe they are just updating the index? All we can do is speculate for now.

This should clarify it:

From the New York Times
Microsoft and Google Set to Wage Arms Race

IN THE ARTICLE:
As Google grows, so does its need to store and handle more Web site information, video and e-mail content on its servers. "Those machines are full," Mr. Schmidt, the chief executive, said in an interview last month. "We have a huge machine crisis."

READ THE FULL STORY

This would explain all of the odd SERP's and decrease in result numbers.

The Google inc. is trying to maintain the best search index. So they
Remove pages
Change index positions
Change ranks
Add pages.
Roll back indexes and do various things from time to time.