Web: Googlean logic [en]
I have said several times on this blog how much I was impressed by Google's developers (see here and here ). However, I have some trouble with their sense of logic, and wonder if their advanced search is so advanced. We all know the "Boolean" operators provided by Google:
- Chirac OR Sarkozy returns the pages containing one or the other keyword or both,
- Chirac AND Sarkozy returns the pages which contain both (the AND is optional),
- Chirac -Sarkozy returns the pages which contain Chirac but not Sarkozy.
| Query | Results |
|---|---|
| Chirac | 3 260 000 |
| Chirac OR Sarkozy | 1 570 000 |
Second surprise:
| Query | Results |
|---|---|
| Chirac | 3 260 000 |
| Chirac OR Chirac | 1 950 000 |
| Chirac AND Chirac | 1 950 000 |
| Chirac Chirac | 2 010 000 |
One should have the same result in all cases.
Third surprise:
| Request | Results |
|---|---|
| Chirac AND Sarkozy | 154 000
|
| Chirac -Sarkozy | 1 950 000 |
| -Chirac Sarkozy | 320 000
|
| Total | 2 424 000 |
However, according to the Venn diagram below, the total of the various results should be the same as Chirac OR Sarkozy, i.e. 1 570 000 (but this is probably already false!).
I don't have the slightest idea of the source of the problem. Of course, I know that the numbers returned by Google are approximations (the engine specifically says 'about x results'), and that the numbers can slightly vary as a function of the "data centers" that process the request and can vary from one time to another. These reasons can explain small differences, but not differences of a factor of two. I've asked in different forums. No one seems to have the solution (if some among you have it, I'll be very curious to know!)
In any case, it is annoying for use in classrooms (the other day I made a fool of myself in front of my students -- ok, I will survive ;-), but it is much more annoying for professional uses, and especially the emerging "Google linguistics".
My advice: it is better use Yahoo! Search for this kind of calculations:
Test 1:
| Query | Results |
|---|---|
| Chirac | 2 219 000 |
| Chirac OR Sarkozy | 2 450 000 |
| Query | Results |
|---|---|
| Chirac | 2 210 000 |
| Chirac OR Chirac | 2 220 000 |
| Chirac AND Chirac | 2 220 000 |
| Chirac Chirac | 2 200 000 |
Test 3:
| Query | Results |
|---|---|
| Chirac AND Sarkozy | 205 000 |
| Chirac -Sarkozy | 1 990 000
|
| -Chirac Sarkozy | 256 000
|
| Total | 2 451 000 |
There are still small fluctuations but those I am ready to accept as the result of the algorithm's approximations.
Should we start Yahoo! linguistics ?
Post-Scriptum
24 jan - Mark Liberman just posted a very interesting follow up on Language Log.
28 jan - See new developments : Google's counts faked ?
Libellés : Google
5 Commentaires:
the boolean operators aren't applied to the search engines in a strict way due to their cost and some other factors
When you see result 1 of x.000.000 the second number is NOT the total documents matching your criteria, but the selected documents which you criteria has been applied.
About the "OR" operator it's quite different from the boolena "OR" because it's very expensive in terms of memory and cpu (the indexes can't be used effectively and the data set to scan became quickly enormous)
For this reason the OR operator (in few search engines it works...) is applied just to a small set of pages.
Just try to search house, than cat and then house or cat :)
I hope it's more clear now
I understand the difficulty of list union or intersection, the need for estimates, etc. My point is precisely that the number of "selected documents", obtained for whatever internal reasons, is misleading for the user. Yahoo and MS Search do a much better job at estimating these counts. It is therefore feasible. Try house OR cat on these engines, and you'll see that the behavior is fine. In addition, there is no reason at all to give less results for X AND X than for X alone. I'm inclined to think that this is just old code in Google, that needs some serious rewriting ;-)
This is an old concept, studied previously.
It is nicknamed "Google Flux" and has to do with the way their massive databases communicate. It causes some pages to seem to "wink out" of existance and back in from time to time, causing webmasters much nervousness.
Search for the term and you can find much more background and examples.
My understanding is that "Google flux" qualifies the oscillations over a short time span for individual sites. New sites are included in the index, and seem dropped a few days later, and then they reappear.
My observation here is different. It is systematic, over long periods of time, affects huge amouns of results, and does not depend on the query keywords. It looks more like a bug or very bad estimation algorithm.
Found that funny Flash app to illustrate your post.
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