Let's google Gogol!

[Brewer, Michael]

All, 

I'm not sure you can always trust Google's search results to be the same for all users or for them to be the same from one moment to the next, or even for them to make sense.  

For example, I just did the same search (Gogol on Google.com) and got only 1,770,000.  When I used Google's OR function (to expand my search to sites with either gogol or гоголь), it actually REDUCED the number of hits to 1,700,000, which makes no sense at all (you get 431,000 when you just search for гоголь on Google.com).

On google.ru I get 1,870,000 with gogol and гоголь gets 1,360,000. Combining them with OR gets 1,700,000.  This is also nuts.  Interesting that I get the same number when combining the two on the two sites.

mb

Michael Brewer
Slavic Studies, German Studies & Media Arts Librarian
University of Arizona Library A210
1510 E. University
P.O. Box 210055
Tucson, AZ 85721
Voice: 520.307.2771
Fax: 520.621.9733
brewerm at u.library.arizona.edu

-----Original Message-----
From: Slavic & East European Languages and Literature list [mailto:SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU] On Behalf Of Alina Israeli
Sent: Monday, February 20, 2006 4:44 PM
To: SEELANGS at LISTSERV.CUNY.EDU
Subject: Re: [SEELANGS] Let's google Gogol!

>Colleagues,
>Here are the results of a Google search for another famous writer on
>Google.com (Roman alphabet) and Google.ru (Cyrillic):
>
>Gogol on Google.com - 2,870,000 hits
>
>Гоголь on Google.ru - 1,360,000 hits
>

That's because Russian is included into English but not in reverse. I
did the Gogol /Гоголь search, and the #1 item in the Roman Gogol was


Публичная электронная библиотека: Николай Васильевич Гоголь.(Russian)
Николай Васильевич Гоголь. Сверка произведена по "Собранию сочинений
Н.В.Гоголя в семи томах" (Москва, Художественная литература, 1967).
Евгений Пескин ...
public-library.narod.ru/Gogol.Nikolai/ - 7k - Сохранено в кэше -
Похожие страницы

because it has the Latinized Gogol in the URL, as do most Russian sites.
--
__________
Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Mass. Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20016

phone:	(202) 885-2387
fax:	(202) 885-1076

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