Whatdoestheinternetthink.net - How it 'works' ×

Since launching, this has sparked up some discussion as to how it all works. Well, you can understand that I don’t want to disclose too much of the ‘algorithm’ of the site. However: basically it searches based on associative (so far just English) sentences. The given search term is used in these sentences which are then sent off to the various search engines, counting the amount of results returned. (Sentences are double quoted before they are sent off, so as to make sure the search-engines search for occurrences of the *whole* sentence).

This, of course, produces questionable results which should not be taken very seriously. However, the more results (hits) returned, the more reliable these results can become. Do a search for George Bush and then Barack Obama, and you’ll see that the internet is certainly not far off – or perhaps even in-sync – with the result you had in mind.

My advice would be to do 10 ‘obvious’ searches, of which you are almost certain of the results, based on your perception of general opinion (e.g. ‘beer’, ‘sex’, ‘sleeping’, etc.) and then do 10 less obvious searches. If the first 10 convince you of even the slightest accuracy, the second 10 will perhaps be not as random as you thought.