[LINK] Google News Doesn't Add Up

[rene]

On Wed, 2 Mar 2011 15:18:10 +1100, Roger Clarke wrote:

> We know that Google's search-engine hit-counts either (a) are
> designed to deliver semi-nonsense numbers, or (b) reflect one, some
> or many bugs.

Matt Cutts of Google says that Google has always said the results count is 
only an estimate:
	"...We've talked about the fact that results estimates are just estimates 
for years, see e.g. ... We try to be very clear that our results estimates 
are just that--estimates. In theory we could spend cycles on that aspect of 
our system, but in practice we have a lot of other things to work on, and 
more accurate results estimates is lower on the list than lots of other 
things.
http://www.businessinsider.com/google-no-we-dont-deliberately-sabotage-sear
ch-query-results-2010-10

More on the issue here:

Why Google Can't Count Results Properly
Oct 21, 2010 at 6:54pm ET by Danny Sullivan
http://searchengineland.com/why-google-cant-count-results-properly-53559

Irene