[Air-l] counting google hits

[Thomas Koenig]

Scrive Ulla Bunz <bunz at scils.rutgers.edu>:

> Actually, you do have influence on google fight results.

If so, please influence its results in a way that Kerry beats Bush.

> I noticed, for
> example,
> that Burger King wins by a huge margin compared to McDonalds, except,
> they spelled
> it MacDonalds, and so unless you know, you'll be getting the wrong
> impression.

[...]

You can influence googlefight's *queries*, no doubt, but not its results, as
you yourself say:

> you can
> influence exactly what google searches for.
--------------------------------^^^^^^^^^^^^

Just like the results SPSS delivers depends, of course, on the data file,
which you can manipulate as you like it. Does that make SPSS an unreliable
tool?

Thomas
--
thomas koenig, ph.d.
department of social sciences, loughborough university, u.k.
http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/mmethods/staff/thomas/index.html