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To 2: When I look for just "R" even in an anonymous window (so it should not use my history) I get as the first suggestion a link to https://www.r-project.org/ - the home of R. What else is there for that letter - that is equally popular? "R" is "hip" and trending. Microsoft not too long ago started a big push into the R space and now regularly generates headlines around the system, accelerating the trend even more.

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Even weirder, a Google search for "xlispstat" seems to bring up more R hits that don't even mention xlispstat than actual xlispstat ones. Some weird algorithm is associating R and xlispstat as relating to statistics and because R is much more popular these days, prioritizing R over xlispstat.

it's not the search engine's fault, it's the contents. R is associated to xlispstat as the credible alternative. E.g. Jan de Leeuw JStat's paper. Also the author of xlispstat is one main contributor to R.

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