Google Inc. is actively on the lookout for acquisitions, using what it calls the “toothbrush test” to determine whether a potential target provides a service that is used once or twice a day.

“Right now we’re at a rate where we’re closing a transaction every two weeks,” Don Harrison, Google’s mergers and acquisitions chief, said in a televised interview at the Bloomberg Next Big Thing Summit in Half Moon Bay, California. “We apply something called the toothbrush test, which is we ask ourselves, ‘Is this something people use once or twice a day and does it solve a problem.’”

Google, based in Mountain View, California, is using acquisitions to add products that can keep users glued to its online services. The company bought Waze Inc. for $1.1 billion earlier this month, gaining technology that draws on user input to make maps more accurate.

“That vibrant crowdsourced information will allow us to make our maps vibrant and useful, more accessible,” Harrison said.