2007-01-31 13:12:47
Google's political BIAS
I quickly mentioned in a previous post, that webmasters from all over the world made a George W Bush site rank at #1 for the phrase "miserable failure" and later, also for "miserable" and "failure". This was done by linking the Bush site with that particular anchor text (link text). It was mentioned in Google ups and downs.
Just lately however, Google has removed the Bush page for that specific term, and has officially stated that:
So, in other words; Complaints from Bush followers has changed Google's minds about not interfering with the link-votes of the Internet community.
Googles PageRank algorithms are based on the simple fact that a site's popularity is a reflection of the amount of links to the site.
It's sort of a way to let webmasters, siteowners, bloggers, community members etc.. Have a say in what's important on the web.In this scenario, a massive amount of regular people have displayed their discontent with George W Bush, by taking the above mentioned action.
The President has in many ways been called just that, a miserable failure. And now when the voice of the Internet displays the dissatisfaction, Google no longer think the votes are important enough to be heard.
I will not even get in to what George has done right, and what he has done wrong, but the fact that Google changed their algorithms for this "political action", makes me a bit concerned.
Perhaps the whole concept of a non biased Search Engine is somewhat unfamiliar, how do we actually define one?
For example, following these latest actions from Google, It's apparent that Google sees upon beeing a neutral Search Engine as not allowing "political voting" in their search results. At least if these votes are "negative" for the affected site, and in an "underdog eats top dog" - fashion.
I would however, go in the opposite way, and say that a non biased Search Engine is one that doesn't alter search results in order to dodge political influences in the result pages.Neutrality by altering? That's not possible, since every way of altering political results is a taking a standpoint on what should be allowed, and what shouldn't.
At the same time, Google is receiving hundreds of million dollars (Update: This article was removed from Yahoo and is now linked to localtechwire instead...) from states all over the US, for new construction projects.
Without taking the argument too far, one could at least aknowledge that this is, or can become, an unpleasant situation.
I for one, see a possible future, where Google can only count the "positive" votes made by the internet community.
In my own subjective ignorance, I feel that political underdogs will tend to criticize while top dogs tend to focus on the positive achievements. And if Google starts to disregard negative voting, this could (if ever so slightly) result in Google acting as a conservative force, in favor for ruling parties.This was the day when Google biased search engine results, to stop searchers from thinking that the results were biased... a very odd story indeed.
Just lately however, Google has removed the Bush page for that specific term, and has officially stated that:
"Over time, we've seen more people assume that they are Google's opinion, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Googlebombed queries. That's not true, and it seemed like it was worth trying to correct that misperception."
So, in other words; Complaints from Bush followers has changed Google's minds about not interfering with the link-votes of the Internet community.
Googles PageRank algorithms are based on the simple fact that a site's popularity is a reflection of the amount of links to the site.
It's sort of a way to let webmasters, siteowners, bloggers, community members etc.. Have a say in what's important on the web.In this scenario, a massive amount of regular people have displayed their discontent with George W Bush, by taking the above mentioned action.
The President has in many ways been called just that, a miserable failure. And now when the voice of the Internet displays the dissatisfaction, Google no longer think the votes are important enough to be heard.
I will not even get in to what George has done right, and what he has done wrong, but the fact that Google changed their algorithms for this "political action", makes me a bit concerned.
What is a non biased Search Engine?
Perhaps the whole concept of a non biased Search Engine is somewhat unfamiliar, how do we actually define one?
For example, following these latest actions from Google, It's apparent that Google sees upon beeing a neutral Search Engine as not allowing "political voting" in their search results. At least if these votes are "negative" for the affected site, and in an "underdog eats top dog" - fashion.
I would however, go in the opposite way, and say that a non biased Search Engine is one that doesn't alter search results in order to dodge political influences in the result pages.Neutrality by altering? That's not possible, since every way of altering political results is a taking a standpoint on what should be allowed, and what shouldn't.
At the same time, Google is receiving hundreds of million dollars (Update: This article was removed from Yahoo and is now linked to localtechwire instead...) from states all over the US, for new construction projects.
Without taking the argument too far, one could at least aknowledge that this is, or can become, an unpleasant situation.
I for one, see a possible future, where Google can only count the "positive" votes made by the internet community.
In my own subjective ignorance, I feel that political underdogs will tend to criticize while top dogs tend to focus on the positive achievements. And if Google starts to disregard negative voting, this could (if ever so slightly) result in Google acting as a conservative force, in favor for ruling parties.This was the day when Google biased search engine results, to stop searchers from thinking that the results were biased... a very odd story indeed.
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