I think the experiment that added information about forum threads is now live:

http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-05-26-n73.html
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&suggon=0&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&hs=sVv&q=gmail+maximum+number+of+messages+in+a+thread&btnG=Search

It's interesting that Google Groups didn't get any special treatment.

[Moved from "Google lists number of posts in Vbulletin threads" – Tony]

Hi

I'm not sure if this is a new feature or not but I noticed that on search results Google now lists the number of posts on a Vbulletin thread.

For example http://www.google.ie/search?q=americans+living+in+ireland&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

The link that is first (should be http://www.newtotown.ie – well it is in Google.ie) says '6 posts'. I don't remember seeing this before. Has anyone else?

Ok, I guess other people did notice it :)

Still for the casual user it would be more practical if it would state no responses, instead 1 author...

The question is : is it useful?
When you search for solving an issue, you don't look after how many people can solve your problem, you look after the solution, nothing else.
Am I right if I say that feature is useless for almost everybody? ("almost" becase some people could find an use of that information, but I don't know which one).

I don't think it's useless. Let's say I want to find some information about a strange iPhone 3G bug and I see the following three results:

1. 2 posts, 1 author, last post: Oct 2, 2008
2. 6 posts, 4 authors, last post: Dec 21, 2007
3. 4 posts, 3 authors, last post: Sep 7, 2008

Which one is more likely to be useful?

[moved, thanks Hebbet]

There is a following article,
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/018445.html

Ionut : I don't know . Moreover I suppose iPhone 3G wasn't released in 2007, so result #2 might stay unvisited (=> date may be an useful data, after all).

But, about other results it might be :
#1 : John says "I've a bug..." / John says "OK, I've find a bypass, there is the solution : ..."
#2 : John says "I've a bug..." / Mary says "me too" / Mike says "me too" / John says "still no idea?"

In that case, result #1 is the more usefull, while there are only 2 posts and 1 author.