Do you have the empirical data to back up your unqualified assertions?
Try comparing Google’s estimates to actual hit counts (as reported by going to the last page), with and without “similar results” included, for searches returning fewer than 1000 hits.
Here is one experimental result: estimated count 585, actual with similar results excluded 177, actual with similar results included 224.
Do you have the empirical data to back up your unqualified assertions?
I gave some: Google never returns more than 1000 hits. Therefore estimates orders of magnitude above 1000 (as in the case at hand) cannot be tested by looking at the actual number of hits returned: the two numbers have nothing to do with each other.
I do not know how accurate the estimates are, but a factor of several seems to be about right, as in the test you just made. I have also seen anomalies such as a search for X giving an estimate lower than for a search of X and Y, but never by orders of magnitude, that I’ve noticed.
Do you have the empirical data to back up your unqualified assertions?
Try comparing Google’s estimates to actual hit counts (as reported by going to the last page), with and without “similar results” included, for searches returning fewer than 1000 hits.
Here is one experimental result: estimated count 585, actual with similar results excluded 177, actual with similar results included 224.
I gave some: Google never returns more than 1000 hits. Therefore estimates orders of magnitude above 1000 (as in the case at hand) cannot be tested by looking at the actual number of hits returned: the two numbers have nothing to do with each other.
I do not know how accurate the estimates are, but a factor of several seems to be about right, as in the test you just made. I have also seen anomalies such as a search for X giving an estimate lower than for a search of X and Y, but never by orders of magnitude, that I’ve noticed.