lucy24 - 7:34 am on Sep 17, 2011 (gmt 0)

Does the average person even care if the search results are a 1,000,000 or just 1,000?

Wouldn't do any good if they did care. You can only see the first 1000. 990 if you're viewing 30/page. Someone decided that "1,900,000,000 results" sounds more impressive than "over 1000 results" and gambled that not many people would call their bluff.