You can influence googlefight's *queries*, no doubt, but not its results, as you yourself say:
you can influence exactly what google searches for. --------------------------------^^^^^^^^^^^^
Just like the results SPSS delivers depends, of course, on the data file, which you can manipulate as you like it. Does that make SPSS an unreliable tool?
uhm... may i nonchalantly point out here the vast difference between changing the content of the data file and changing the content of the query run on the data file? not to mention the difference between a closed data file (obtained - ideally - by methodologically sound sampling), which cannot be actually manipulated and remain valid (except, of course, in how you arrange the variables, which data you include or exclude... which is a whole other level of argument) and an "open data file", (i.e., the field itself). heh - kinda neat to consider the internet under that title: an open data file. of course, in the case of googlefight, the data file is one step further away from us, mediated as it is with a predetermined (and single) form of query (number of links) on the content of the data file. on the other hand, we *do* have access to the data file. though, not directly through the googlefight, but rather indirectly by our influence on the internet content. but to be significant, it has to be a form of collective influence (i.e., cultural, national, etc.) thus - as with every statistical analysis - the form of the query should be carefully matched to the research question as well as to the form of the data and of the file. in this case, the data sample is actually the population/field, and google's particular form of the 'data file' (or the determination of which variables are accessible for measurement and how) is closed and not within our reach, and also determines the possible "statistic analyses" - which are very primitive (though certainly always statistically significant). an interesting situation, to be approached and used with caution. Heidi Dawn haLevi MA Research Psych. Bar-Ilan University, Israel .................................... Information and Experience Design ................................... New Media Education -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.0.308 / Virus Database: 266.6.2 - Release Date: 04/03/2005