[trumped]

I agree with you but from my experience, the total number of results if almost definitely inflated... either that or it is completely meaningless. (ie: about the only time that the result count is not inflated is when there are 0 results and I have never seen them underestimate)

[Arnt]

There's a good reason to expect that it usually will be an oversestimate. Two reasons actually.

One, google has a strong incentive to avoid underestimates: Underestimates have a fairly high risk of causing RAM/CPU problems since the actual work that must be needed is higher than estimated, and that's an evil ugly problem when processing input from potentially malevolent anonymous users on the net.

Two, the simplest algorithm to compute the estimate is one that'll overestimate if you choose a good combination of search terms, such as two words that hardly ever occur together. The planner's statistics will know how common each search term is, but may not know that this particular combination is very rare.