[Corpora-List] WebCorp counts

[j_kurjian at hotmail.com]

Hi all,
I have a question about the concordance counts produced by the WebCorp site:

http://www.webcorp.org.uk/wcadvanced.html

For example, if I search ''suggest you don't'' vs. ''suggest that you
don't'' using WebCorp (via Google) I get, at the bottom of the page, a
concordance count of 187 vs. 96 kwics respectively. However, if I search
the same two terms, in quotes, on Google, I get 34,200 vs. 16,200 hits.
The ratios are similar though not the same.

Does anyone have insight into how WebCorp calculates/filters its
concordances or why these two engines are so different in the number of
hits they return?

In fact, it is nice to have the more manageable number produced by WebCorp,
and the external collocate counts it creates. But, for example, if I am
interested in
the frequency of ''I'' collocating with the two search terms based on
WebCorp, I'd like to be clearer how those two counts are derived.

Jerry

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