[Web4lib] Why use the plus symbol before search terms when googling?

[Jeremy Dunck]

On 9/7/05, David Dorman <dorman at indexdata.com> wrote:
>          1.  People who assert things that are verifiable ought to verify
> them and cite their sources.

See 2.

>          2.  It is very difficult to figure out exactly what Google does
> because it is poorly documented and works inconsistently.

Since it's so difficult, people tend to go for empiricism.  I have
observed, through personal trial and error, that using a tilde does do
stemming.  As for the number of results you're citing, they're wildly
inaccurate.  They're "estimates", and AFAIK they are based on bloom
filters.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloom_filter

>          4.  34,600,000 angels can dance on the head of a pin today at this
> time on this pin.

Yes, I've complained before that there's too much talk of Google, but
I guess I fed that troll this time.