Hard-Coded Bias In Google Search Results? 257
bonch writes "Technology consultant Benjamin Edelman has developed a methodology for determining the existence of a hard-coded bias in Google's search engine which places Google's services at the top of the results page. Searching for a stock ticker places Google Finance at the top along with a price chart, but adding a comma to the end of the query removes the Google link completely. Other variations, such as 'a sore throat' instead of 'sore throat,' removes Google Health from its top position. Queries in other categories provide links to not only Google services but also their preferred partners. Though Google claims it does not bias its results, Edelman cites a 2007 admission from Google's Marissa Mayers that they placed Google Finance at the top of the results page, calling it 'only fair' because they made the search engine. Edelman notes that Google cites its use of unbiased algorithms to dismiss antitrust scrutiny, and he recalls the DOJ's intervention in airlines providing favorable results for their own flights in customer reservation systems they owned."
I am not sure whether this is right or wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is the most obvious "discovery" ever.
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When you search for CSCO, it is doing some calculations and creating a stock chart. It would be reasonable for them to just link to Google Finance.
"I give you more for 'free'... and you... pay me in return."
In case you the Parent post and anyone else missed out our Google Instant discussions the other day, Google makes more ad impressions the longer stay orbiting Google.com.
In other words, Google provides us O(n) more data per keyword search, to ensure an earning of our, er, O(greater-than-linear) time. We're spending that analyzing the massaged top results and actually clicking to yet another google service. That perpetuates the cycle and increases
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yup. most of the time on the more popular tech stocks yahoo finance will show above google too, so where this "hard coded" bias comes from is imagination.
You know what's just as much comedy?
top of the page:
Yup. He's writing for himself, for a paycheck, to write against google.
No Way!! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Stories like these are written by people who either don't understand business or do understand business and are butt-hurt because they can't compete against their competitor on their competitor's website.
They understand better than you do apparently.
Google is welcome to bias its results if it wants to. However, if it biases its results than it loses any claim to neutrality. Given that google is actively using its claim of neutrality elsewhere to its benefit then somehthing's got to give.
It can't take the be
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Exactly.
Fact: Google it's more than no 1. It's the only thing that can drive traffic from searches.
Fact: first position gets most traffic. First "reserved" position (for own services) or not.
Fact: reserved positions will be occupied by Google-only services (even if those services are not the best on the web), or paying customers.
Fact: Google expanded rapidly also because they claim that every website is equal, you all have a chance just make a good website.
Now let's imagine you choose a topic A, and you bu
Re:No Way!! (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously: you completely omitted the "if I make awesome website A, and advertise it on google."
you're claiming that your website is awesome: but people are not going TO your site, people are going to your site because it was linked somewhere else. how is that unfair? you're using their name to get free advertising for your domain name essentially, and you wonder why somebody would take your "trade secret" and use it themselves?
sorry: I don't see how a site that's "the most popular" of anything can't get direct traffic.
Google seems to get a hell of a lot of direct traffic.
Re:No Way!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Fact: Google expanded rapidly also because they claim that every website is equal, you all have a chance just make a good website.
I don't recall Google ever suggesting that every Web site is equal. In fact, the whole point of the PageRank algorithm is that every site is not equal, and most people are going to want to go to the site that everybody else goes to. This puts an automatic bias toward established players -- if someone else has the best XYZ site today, and you start a "good" XYZ site, you have very little chance of bumping the other guy's site out of first place. Your site will have to be significantly better than the other guy's site, which is kind of how it works in real life, most of the time.
As far as competing directly with Google, Google's services are largely information-based. The weather, medical advice, stock prices ... these are the kind of things a reference librarian could point you to, which are arguably the sort of things that a good information search engine should provide. If all your site is providing is factoids that can be screen scraped from someone else's site (like the National Weather Service), then you're doing it wrong, and you shouldn't expect to get top ranking on Google anyway.
And it's worth noting that if I go to Google.com, type in "cancer" and click "I'm Feeling Lucky," the page that comes up is ... the American Cancer Society. Not Google Health. If I do the same for "sore throat" I get MedicineNet.com. If I do it for "AAPL" I get Yahoo Finance (no joke, try it).
On the other hand, people who specifically ask for a page of search results from a specific search engine shouldn't be surprised if the search engine tries to offer information instead of just URLs. It's just part of the ongoing evolution of what a search engine can/should be.
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"I'm Feeling Lucky" ? People actually use that?
Anyone who misses the search box and types into their FF address bar uses that.
weird (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:weird (Score:5, Informative)
And it is quite clear that that isn't a search result, but rather some info at the top of the page.
The first actual algorithmic search result for AAPL for example is Yahoo Finance (1st two results), then Google Finance, then Wall Street Journal.
I'm in the UK so uk.finance.yahoo.com is first, then finance.yahoo.com. If you are searching in the US, then probably it doesn't show uk.finance.yahoo.com at all or it is much futher down the page along with the likes of sg.finance.yahoo.com.
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You deserve + mod. I lack mod points, so have this waffle instead (>'.')>#
Re:weird (Score:5, Informative)
Someone seems to think they've "discovered" Google secretly "manipulating" search results when all they've done is "discover" a feature that Google is quite open about that certain search results get a special result which is not a product of the normal web-search put at the top.
Google has for quite some time been building in features that attempt to recognize the special meaning of search terms, and will respond to searches that match one of the mechanisms they have for potential meaning with a special result.
This is just as algorithmic as regular web search, but is a result of a term triggering a special algorithm (either a stock ticker symbol, which gives a special result that presents Google Finance info with links to other financial information sources, a formula that can be processed by Google Calculator in which case the calculator result appears before the normal web search results, etc.)
Re:weird (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the same thing that gives me UPS as the first link if I search for a UPS tracking number.
Re:weird (Score:5, Informative)
Not only that, but I get the exact same feature with a graph and a link to finance.yahoo.com when I search for GOOG on yahoo and a bing.com/finance link when I search for GOOG on bing.
omg they're all biased!
Re:weird (Score:5, Informative)
Mod parent "woosh" for completely missing the point of the article (which he probably didn't read).
The point is that Google has said many times that it should be immune to anti-trust scrutiny because its search results are unbiased, among other reasons. This article, however, makes a logical, empirically supported argument for why Google *should* be subject to such scrutiny; because it is, in fact, engaging in the sorts of activities that anti-trust laws are meant to regulate. Namely, that it is using using its dominance in the search engine market to stifle competition in other areas.
This is not "nitpicking", as the GP suggests. This is about the flow of global commerce (and the billions of real dollars associated) being unfairly diverted by one company through the seemingly innocuous practice of reordering search results. The question is not about whether or not Google is engaging in this behavior, but is instead about the ethical implications of doing so. It's a question of the point at which service to the public interest overrides Google's right to profit from its proprietary technology.
When starting a debate over such an important topic, it's necessary to first perform a thorough investigation to reveal the facts of the case, even if most people would consider the results to be obvious. That's what this article does.
Re:weird (Score:5, Insightful)
Read the article. Its stupid. Seriously.
Sure, and if you want to make an argument that their actively promoted, publicly announced, documented Universal Search feature is inconsistent with those statements, there may be a legitimate argument to be made about that.
OTOH, most of TFA was an attempt to "prove" that Google was doing something secret and underhanded by pretending that Universal Search wasn't a publicly disclosed, widely promoted, well-documented feature and pretending to "discover" the feature.
It's completely intellectually dishonest.
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The world is full of nitpicking. Just like the AV companies complaining about MS including their AV product in the windows download page, however they conveniently neglect to tell people that if you click "find antivirus software online" in the security act
Stupid Article (Score:3, Insightful)
If you don't like it...call a different lawnmower store!
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If you want to make analogies, it's as if the lawn mower store happens to be owned by the same company that owns the local news station, and they do a review of lawn mowers on the news. Then people would be right in complaining about bias / conflict of interest.
Whether or not Google has a right to do this legally, if they are claiming to be unbi
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Indeed it is not the same. Because it is even less of an issue.
Google is detecting a stock symbol and putting some extra information above the actual search results! The actual search results are the same!
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Deliberately inserting a self-serving link into a result set where one would not otherwise appear is, in fact, a case of bias. People don't mind it too much because they usually end up with good results in either case. Nor do they mind the fact that those results come directly from Google. In fact, some people may find it preferable to get all their info from and do all their shopping on one site.
However, saying that we should not hold Google accountable because people like the service they provide is li
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The actual search results are the same!
RTFA...or perhaps just RTFSummary. The search results are not the same as they would otherwise be. That's the whole point.
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The problem is that, the store does not claim to be unbiased, but google does (for anti-trust reason). Anyway the whole thing is non-story, google does not reorder search results, it just adds a widget on top, that can give you more direct information from other google services.
how dare they (Score:2)
how dare they give me something for free and tell me to use more of their products.
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Sure it's free speech and they're a corporation and have the right to make a profit. But there is
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No, it's like asking your gardener what lawnmower is best, buying it on his recommendation, and then finding out he's getting paid to say that because the store owns his company.
OMG! Slashdot is Biased! (Score:3, Interesting)
Slashdot is totally biased!
They have their name in huge print at the top of the page, and all the links go to various pages on their domain! Clearly they're biased toward themselves!
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That would be like me calling up my local lawnmower store looking for a lawnmower. ..
It's even worse than that... it's like asking someone at the store to show you the datasheet for a specific lawnmower (compare to: information about a specific stock symbol).
And people claim the clerk is biased for offering to show you their store's copy of the datasheet, before telling you that you can go to a competitor's store across the street to get a copy of essentially the same datasheet.
As clicking on Goog
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Do you believe any advise is unbiased?
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Their claim is that search results are unbiased. (Score:2)
And the evidence shows that they are. However, for some searches, they show an informative entry at the top, which includes information, like stock quotes, and links to various sources of more info. The only 'issue' is that their services are more prominent than other's services in that informative entry.
After that are the unbiased search results.
Personally, I'd like them to add a little bias to the searches. I'd like to spend less time staring at yet another experts-exchange page, and have anyone caught sp
Re:Stupid Article (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't bias the results. If you look at any of the searches mentioned in the article yes the Google thing appears at the top, but it is fairly obvious it's not a web search result.
If Google sees a normal search go through that their engine thinks may be better served by running in one of their other tools, it does that and offers a small preview at the top of the page, then starts the results below. It does not change the results themselves though, and I can not see anyone confusing those previews for search results. Also, as noted where they link to their own services they also link to the same information at other sites.
No bias in the search itself, no real story, just someone who wanted to whine.
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[...] yes the Google thing appears at the top, but it is fairly obvious it's not a web search result.
Hmmm...a link to a website that that offers an answer to a query you entered into a web search engine? That sounds exactly like a "web search result", which is what it is. Google does not mark these links as advertisements because they correctly assume that they would get fewer clicks if they did.
Also, one of the points the author makes (and backs up with real statistics) is that there is a direct correlation between result ordering and the number of clicks that those results receive. It doesn't matter w
Oranges and apples (Score:3)
"Edelman notes that Google cites its use of unbiased algorithms to dismiss antitrust scrutiny, and he recalls the DOJ's intervention in airlines providing favorable results for its own flights in customer reservation systems they owned."
Er, airlines sell tickets for profit. What exactly does Google make from you when you use their search engine?
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Er, airlines sell tickets for profit. What exactly does Google make from you when you use their search engine?
I'm sorry, are you high? Live in a cave? Under a rock?
Google sells ad views (and more).
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Google sells ad views.
No, strangely they don't: they sell ad clicks.
views, though wonderful and tracked: are not sold, infact they provide them for free*. only clicks cost you anything. like the last poster mentioned, the worse the results, the less likely you are to click on the ads, thus the business model is to provide the best searches, to find the add you were looking to click on.
if you get a bad search on google, the ads (if even present) will reflect people's desire to market towards the terrible keywords you used.
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1. Sell ads to advertisers and give free ad-placement service to websites.
2. Direct you to websites.
3. Profit!
Note the lack of "???" in step 2. These ain't no underpants gnomes here.
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"Edelman notes that Google cites its use of unbiased algorithms to dismiss antitrust scrutiny, and he recalls the DOJ's intervention in airlines providing favorable results for its own flights in customer reservation systems they owned."
Er, airlines sell tickets for profit. What exactly does Google make from you when you use their search engine?
What do they make? Eight billion dollars a year.
(bah, can't paste still. slashdot hates chrome. I was going to cite my source.)
Do you think they do it just for fun? By keeping you in their services for longer, they continue to show you ads and make their money.
Of course, I'm fine with all that.
-Taylor
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Quite the opposite (unless you follow the ad links). By following the "organic" results links, which most people do, you are degrading the value of the ads which they sell.
If they're top in their own listings, big wow. Try typing "microsoft sucks arse" into bing.com and see what's number one.
and? (Score:2, Redundant)
Isn't that kind of like getting mad at Sears for trying to sell you a Kenmore (their own brand) appliance before offering you an LG?
There's much more profit in pushing your own products.
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Wow... it's bee a long time since I've been moded redundant because, if I remember correctly, the last time I was moded redundant was a long time ago.
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Not Search Results (Score:5, Informative)
Did anyone read the article?
The search results for 'acne' vs 'acne,' were exactly the same. The difference was where the search started.
With the comma, the search results started immediately. Without the comma, the search results started after a 'Value-Added' section at the top of the page.
This doesn't show a problem with Google's search engine or algorithm, it shows that in addition to the search feature, Google also has a 'Decision Engine' (to steal a phrase)...or whatever that Wolfram Alpha crap said about itself.
This is exactly the same thing as the conversion/arithmetic functions that Google has. Is it Anti-trust for Google to automatically show you the "centimeters to inches" conversion instead of simply linking to another page that has a converter app?
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Yeah, in think its part of the universal search [google.com] feature.
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Google health or the patent database, on the other hand, are a little more complicated. Just a little. They are an attempt to compete with existing companies in an advertising / content business where google doesn't yet have a toehold in the market.
There's no way that the patent listing referred to in the article (999999), or the acne article, are more useful to the searcher than real algorithmic results wou
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This is exactly the same thing as the conversion/arithmetic functions that Google has. Is it Anti-trust for Google to automatically show you the "centimeters to inches" conversion instead of simply linking to another page that has a converter app?
I was about to say something similar. Searching for "csco" versus "csco$", the results are identical, apart from the link to Google Finance at the top of the "csco" results. There is the issue that the Google Finance box appears identical to a regular search result, and gets a graphic icon, however, I would say that this is strongly compensated for by Google's inclusion of multiple links to competing web sites within the "value added Finance box" (links are "Google Finance Yahoo Finance MSN Money Dail
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Why do people seem so oblivious to the notion that Google should be held accountable for anti-competetive behavior regardless of how much their customers love these "Value-Added" features, as you call them?
Consider Microsoft or Apple, who have often attempted to block competition under the premise of delivering a consistent "user experience" or some other mumbo jumbo. This isn't about the millions of adoring fans who are already drinking the Kool-Aid, but is rather about protecting the rights of those who
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It also shows that Google has lazy programmers... they can't regular expression out a comma?
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Congrats on also not being able to understand google's page layout.
Hint actual search results don't display as a link heading, followed by a secondary set of links to different web sites, then followed by a summary.
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
The article is inaccurate. Google does not bias search results, the results which appear on top aren't regular search results, they are more like services.
If I search for "the social network" as the article provides as proof of bias, I am happy to see a service presenting me with additional info which is certainly NOT a search result, but rather dynamically generated content. No search result can provide that, only google can because after all its their site.
Besides, how awful would it be to have that special "generated" information not showing up first?? why would it be displayed in the 3rd, 4th, 6th position? It makes no sense! Because it ISN'T a web search result. It would also be an awful user experience.
If I wasn't new here I would ask: "Why is this even news in slashdot land?" :P
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I think one thing Google could do to address these kinds of complaints is to delineate it more clearly. To computer savvy people, it's pretty obviously a different, discrete "section" of the page than the actual search results, but to people like my grandma (and apparently the author of this article) it appears to simply be the first search result.
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To computer savvy people, it's pretty obviously a different, discrete "section" of the page than the actual search results, but to people like my grandma (and apparently the author of this article) it appears to simply be the first search result.
Looks just like the first search result to me too. [imageshack.us]
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I am not saying google shouldn't be allowed to do this. They should. But people should understand Google's search results page is an expression of their business strategy. Not a scientific formula.
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Except that they claim it is a scientific formula. That's what the article claims google said to the antitrust people at least.
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They claim that the search results portion is based on a formula. Not the whole page - and specifically not the "smart" stuff like calculator, stock prices, flight status etc.
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They claim that the search results portion is based on a formula. Not the whole page - and specifically not the "smart" stuff like calculator, stock prices, flight status etc.
When that stuff is undifferentiated from the rest of the results [imageshack.us] it is not another portion.
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what if I just wanted to read some reviews? Or check out the cast list? What makes google's own web pages automatically more relevant than any other web pages?
1) maybe try the "reviews" keyword at the end. 2) give "cast" a go at the end of that one.
your ambiguous statement confused the computer. it's recommending what everybody else is clicking on when also searching for such ambiguity.
seriously: your statement is like asking "when I say red, why would someone respond 'lights' and not with [insert whatever random thing you thought and never communicated here]"
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> what if I just wanted to read some reviews?
In addition to the show times appearing as part of the first result are the words "Trailer" and "Reviews". If you want a review, click "review". If you have google instant on, it will actually suggest you add "review" as a key word (and you only need to type "r" to see the review links).
If, instead, you stick with "the social network" and you follow the main link, it will tell you the main cast as well as offer you a link to imdb. If that's too far, the sec
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If I search for "the social network" on bing, I get showtimes from bing (and the comma trick doesn't even work there). Showtimes (and not a link to another page with showtimes) is *always* the most relevant result when the search is the name of a movie currently playing. If I search for "the social network reviews" the google result doesn't come up at all and the top results are from another site. On bing, that search still just returns their showtimes widget.
If my search is for something that can be cal
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Actually, google does not *always* put their results first. There is a google page with reviews for "the social network," but if you search for "the social network reviews," you don't get the google result. You get the google result first when it is the right answer. Bing, however, will always give you their page first.
If you search for a stock ticker, you will get the current quote and a chart. On google, you will also get a link to "Google Finance," "Yahoo Finance," "MSN Money," "DailyFinance," "CNN M
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Actually, google does not *always* put their results first.
Again - "when google puts their own services in the results list, they always put them first."
Want to prove me wrong? Give me a google URL that puts a non-google result first and a google service in any other position on the list.
The closest you can come to that is the occasional youtube video.
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Ok, you've convinced me. This is a horrible injustice. From now on, when I search for a movie currently playing, I want a bunch of links that may or may not have showtimes first. I want a search engine to obscure my results. Just because google probably has the correct answer because they've developed services designed to answer specific questions doesn't mean they should be allowed to use them.
"email" has hotmail as top result (Score:5, Informative)
There's a difference between website search result and inline information from other google services.
The first search result for GOOG yahoo finance, but the first thing shown, before the search results, is google's finance data (as if you were searching via google finance).
"World map", "map of the usa", "shopping", no top places for google.
"6*9" gives "54", but no webpage results... OMG HAX
Gmail is top result for me (Score:2)
I am not sure what country you are in. I am in the US.
Gmail is the top result for me. Hotmail is placed 3rd following Yahoo mail.
The one that annoys me... (Score:3, Funny)
... is the bloody stupid "autocorrect" thing. You know, where you type in something that doesn't have a lot of hits, and it comes back with "Showing results for . Click for results for ". A good example is "mkiss" which is a networking utility - type that in and you get millions of results for "kiss" which is totally the wrong thing.
Google has become increasingly unusable. The stupid javascript preview thing is just about the last straw. I've since switched back to Altavista.
Re:The one that annoys me... (Score:4, Funny)
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What a coincidence!
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I've since switched back to Altavista.
Except that Altavista is long gone. And Yahoo is beyond useless, worse than even Bing with which it's going to merge.
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Start searching for +mkiss instead of mkiss. Case closed. Next!
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One hand not talking to the other (Score:2)
TFA is F stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
Yawn. (Score:5, Insightful)
On Google, Yahoo, Bing, and even WolframAlpha the "top link" for stock quotes is actually a widget that shows current stock info. Google's widget is the only one of the four that has links to all their competitors' finance sites.
The same is true of health searches, travel searches, you name it... Google's widgets give you choices, the rest shuffle you to their sponsored site.
Mod article troll.
not standard search results (Score:4, Informative)
they are not messing with search results order, they are putting a breakout at the top of the results when your query hits potentially relevant results on one of their other functions.
I just searched for a stock ticker (Score:4, Informative)
Benjamin Edelman is a troll.
Re:I just searched for a stock ticker (Score:5, Informative)
More importantly he is a paid consultant for Microsoft. [benedelman.org]
Hard-coded bias? (Score:2)
I call shenanigans. I'm quite sure it is algorithmic and properly parametrized.
This is an feature Google promotes! (Score:2)
Why is this presented as if it was a discovery of a secret nefarious plot? Google is very open with the fact that for certain search terms, they put a special result (often from another Google service) as the first result, before the normal web search results. (This is true of, aside from terms that are Google Health keywords and stock ticker symbols, anything that matches a pattern that is a valid Google Calculator calculation [e.g., "1 furlong/fortnight"]
More of what's going on here. (Score:5, Informative)
There's a lot going on here.
First, the "comma" thing strongly affects Google Suggest, which drives Google Instant. It also affects Google Web Search, but not as strongly. Google Suggest, which comes up with those alternatives for Instant, isn't driven by Google PageRank; it's driven by Google Trends. Or rather, it used to be; it's not as strongly trend-driven as it was a few months ago. That's really a side issue.
Then there are the special-purpose subengines - stocks, health, celebrities, weather, sports, travel, etc. That was actually a Yahoo innovation. Yahoo introduced that in early 2008, with about fifty subengines, and for six months, their search was more on topic than Google's. Few noticed. (I found out about it at a talk by a Yahoo VP.) Then Google copied that idea, and now every major search engine has it. Some of the subengines won't fire with a trailing comma present. The subengines are what the article author is talking about as "hard-coded bias".
Subengines have been around since 2008. What's changing is that some of them now actually sell something. The "weather" and "stocks" subengines don't try to sell anything. The "travel" subengine is different. Try "flight from london to new york". Google has partners ready to sell you tickets. There's a "products" subengine. "dvd player" gets Google results for brands, stores, and types, directing you to Google partners. For neither travel nor products are these entries identified as advertisements.
This is where Google is pushing the line between search results and paid ads. This previously got them into trouble with the Federal Trade Commission back in 2002. [ftc.gov] Now it's more subtle, but it's back.
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Then there are the special-purpose subengines - stocks, health, celebrities, weather, sports, travel, etc. That was actually a Yahoo innovation. Yahoo introduced that in early 2008
An "innovation" that Ask.com had since at least 2002. But hey, who's counting? :)
What's changing is that some [subengines] now actually sell something.
Again, not as new as you think.
Not biasing results (Score:3)
Google has only claimed that they don't bias results of one third party in favor of another (provided no one is playing SEO games). They've never claimed to treat their own services impartially in their search results. They shouldn't be expected to.
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They've never claimed to treat their own services impartially in their search results. They shouldn't be expected to.
Just like Microsoft should be expected to give unequal treatment to 3rd party apps vs MS apps on windows, eh? So you fully support MS apps using secret APIs to get preferential treatment on Windows?
Wow, I found something even more blatant (Score:4, Funny)
Just like IE and MSFT (Score:2, Flamebait)
Edelman cites a 2007 admission from Google's Marissa Mayers that they placed Google Finance at the top of the results page, calling it 'only fair' because they made the search engine
How is this any different than MSFT saying "We made IE as the default browser because we made the OS"?
come on people (Score:2, Insightful)
nothing in life is free...
Perhaps.... (Score:3, Funny)
Pick One: (Score:3, Insightful)
1. Don't be evil
2. Get filthy rich
What an idiot (Score:2)
"One Box" results vs. regular search results (Score:2, Informative)
The finance tickers and other things like weather in Google are called "One Boxes," which are ways to trigger off custom results based on regular expressions. We use them in my work as Google Search Appliance customers, and they work in very much the same way on a search appliance. If someone puts in a ticker with a comma, for example, it might make the One Box disappear because the rules governing it don't allow for that. I don't think that should be considered a bias in the case of specific queries which
Cisco (Score:2, Insightful)
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I saw this article earlier in the week and decided not to submit it to /. because it said the following:
I tried this. Without the comma, Yahoo Finance came up as the first result. With the comma, Yahoo Finance came up as the first result. If I can't reproduce your experiment's results, then I view your whole hypothesis with skepticism.
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so google is a nan?
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1) depends on where you live: In Cambodia, the first result is in fact the "Ministry of Economy and Finance of Cambodia", followed by EINNews.com's cambodia finances page. (JUST did a wget of the google result with q=Finance&)
2) only reflects that most people using GOOGLE, trust that GOOGLE FINANCE is a tool worth using. I guarantee that if they black-listed themselves for a month, they would likely loose 2-5% of the traffic tops. Working in the IT/IS industry, I know for a
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but maybe that's just me. O.o