A search for [site:groups.google.com inurl:thread] returns 145,000 results. Do you you think this is intentional? Since there are certainly better methods to include the usenet-content in the main search, it reminds me of the google.com/blogsearch-robots-txt-missing-lapse.

I'm not sure if the "site" operator works as there are no "sites" on Usenet. When I enter a really strange, nonexistent domain, like "site:hullabulla.foobar.blalalal.com" and add the inurl:thread, I get 213 results... probably just a bug in the Google Groups syntax handler?

I might have not made clear enough what I meant: I don't enter [site:groups.google.com inurl:threads] at groups.google.com but at the standard web search. Basically, what I am asking is: Should Google's crawler index Google's own Groups-pages?

And you're right, there are no 'sites' on Usenet. There might be a bug in the Google Groups, but I didn't realize that before you pointed it out :-). By the way, the web search for [site:hullabulla.foobar.blalalal.com inurl:thread] doesn't have any results.

Ah, you're right, I can see it now! I'll put it on the front-page.

[site:groups.google.com inurl:group] returns over half a millions, some of them may be "wanted" by Google though.

The search for [site:hullabulla.foobar.blalalal.com inurl:thread] does have some results in Google Groups... at least from here.

Why shouldn't the pages get indexed? They often have answers to questions that I am looking for through regular search. And the group creator has the option of making the group private if they don't want group or web search from indexing the group. Many of the groups are used as support forums for different products, so I think it makes sense for Google web search to index them.