n.o@spam writes:
On Tue, 24 Jun 2003 16:16:12 -0500, Bill Seurer Bill_AT_seurer.net
wrote:
Eastward Bound wrote:
Houses explode from gas leaks all the time.
No they don't. Where do you get crap like this?

Search www.cnn.com for 'gas leak house explode'
found over 5000 hits. Here are 3 examples...

First of all, when you type a query into the search box on the
www.cnn.com home page and click Search, you aren't actually searching
www.cnn.com, you're searching the entire Web. Notice that there are
two radio buttons next to the search box with the words "The Web" and
"CNN.com" next to them and the one that's checked by default is "The
Web".

Second, when you search for "gas leak house explode" you're telling
Google to find pages that match *any* of those words, not pages that
match *all* of them.

Third, since you're searching the entire Web, you're finding many
pages reporting on the same events, and many other pages talking about
the topic without actually mentioning specific events.

If you go to www.cnn.com, select the "CNN.com" search rather than
searching "The Web", and search for "gas leak house explode", you find
only three matches, which is not quite the same as "over 5000". If you
search for "gas leak house explosion" instead, you find 68 matches. In
contrast, if you search for "electrical fire house", you find 468
matches.

I'm not trying to claim that any of this is particularly scientific;
I'm merely trying to illustrate that your "over 5000" citation is
completely bogus.