Hard-Coded Bias In Google Search Results?

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."

Comments

I am not sure whether this is right or wrong

[MaxOfS2D]

But I believe it'd be better if their own services didn't display as a result and more as a "hey look your favorite search engine has something for that" kind of thing

Re:I am not sure whether this is right or wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

If you search for "1+1" it shows the result 1+1=2 from Google's servers! OMG. Let the world crumble and fall at your feet.

Try searching for a stock such as CSCO . The top result is a stock chart with links to Google Finance, Yahoo Finance , MSN Money , DailyFinance , CNN Money, and Reuters .

That seems pretty reasonable. Searching for "CSCO" is not the same as searching for "foo". 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.

weird

[Dyinobal]

When I search goog, in google I get a link to google finance and then in the line right under it yahoo finance, MSN money, CNN money, Daily finance and Reuters. So what exactly is the problem? It seems like perhaps someones just nitpicking.

Re:weird

[gmack]

It's the same thing that gives me UPS as the first link if I search for a UPS tracking number.

Re:weird

[afidel]

Actually Google is doing exactly what they should, providing me with high quality links to relevant information and trying to tease out intention from a one or two word query. What the article does is astroturf against google by an employee of a competitor which does not provide me with useful information which is probably why his company is not successful in competing with google =)

Re:weird

[DragonWriter]

Mod parent "woosh" for completely missing the point of the article (which he probably didn't read).

Read the article. Its stupid. Seriously.

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.

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.

Stupid Article

[bradgoodman]

That would be like me calling up my local lawnmower store looking for a lawnmower - and getting angry that they recommended I by a lawnmower that they sold, and I should buy it from them!

If you don't like it...call a different lawnmower store!

Re:Stupid Article

[catbutt]

No, it's not the same. Especially not if they specifically advertise their service as being unbiased. And especially if they want to avoid antitrust scrutiny.

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 unbiased, it is quite reasonable for journalists to keep an eye on whether or not they are keeping their word.

Re:Stupid Article

[mysidia]

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 Google Finance (or Yahoo Finance) is really just a new search

The unbiased thing to do is to ask the visitor to do the most convenient thing, which is to take account the fact that they are at the certain store, and them asking the local clerk probably means they want to see the local store's copy of that datasheet first.

What?

[Superken7]

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

Re:What?

[phyrexianshaw.ca]

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]"

Re:What?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

> 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 second link is the imdb page.

Searching for "3 degrees f in c" will bring up the google calculator as the first result and it will tell me the exact answer I'm looking for. If I use the trick of adding a comma to the end of my search string, the top result has a table with some conversion results (but it doesn't have the exact answer there).

I don't think I'd call it "bias" if the search engine is able to determine that I'm asking a question with a specific answer and it can provide me the exact answer.

Re:What?

[radish]

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.

Re:What?

[Col. Klink (retired)]

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 Money," and "Reuters". Other than the order, these are all top-line results linked in the first result just above the chart. On bing, you get the quote and the chart (from bing). You don't get *any* offsite links in the first result.

The purpose of a search engine is to provide answers. In 1990, the way they provided answers was to find a link to the site that had the answer. Since it's obvious that people want the answer, google enhanced their service to provide the answer first. It's always obvious when they are showing their widget and it is exactly what everyone wants and expects.

Bing saw this was what people wanted as well, and they copied the idea (and also removed offsite links from their first result and made sure the bing result really did show up first, even when it wasn't the correct result).

TFA is F stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

The things this moron is complaining about are not the "search results". Those are Google's helpful subject-based results. Like when I google "2+2", it helpfully returns 4. (OMG! Google is biased toward 4!) Whether adding helpful subject-based information that I didn't explicitly ask for is really helpful might be something to think about, but it has no bearing on any purported bias in the search results themselves.

Yawn.

[pushing-robot]

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.

Re:No Way!!

[vacarul]

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 build the best website there can be for said topic. You are no 1, you get the most traffic. Life it's good.

Then you read that Google it's launching their own website for topic A. This website it's not that good but it gets one of the reserved places. And now the majority of the traffic goes to Google's website. You are f???ed. How can you compete with Google in this situation?

The Google was good then they were just a search engine. Now that they are a little more, there is a conflict of interest. They hijacked the top positions by saying that that is not the top position, but a reserved position (which is at the top so it gets the most traffic).

Re:Google != Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, google is "Not a Number", googol is.

services...

[Anonymous Coward]

I love the google services that are provided at the top.

Calculator in particular.

come on people

[single_user_mode]

nothing in life is free...

Google is a search engine.

[Anonymous Coward]

The whole issue is not even a story.
1) User opens up browser, and types in query into the Google search box.
2) User sees tons of results and is overwhelmed by the number, chooses to filter out and only choose what is familiar.
3) User sees "Google" service, and selects that, because it seems to generally not be full of crap.
4) Over a long period of time, the popular results push down the less popular results, so users see Google things first.
5) Google stays at the top.

Now some idiot has declared that a new-but-still-similar query doesn't show the same results as the original query.
Why not? Because it's not the same query.

tl;dr: Fucking user error.

Pick One:

[Tablizer]

1. Don't be evil

2. Get filthy rich

Re:No Way!!

[PCM2]

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.

Cisco

[jk379]

Searching for switch on Cisco's web site only returns results that have to do with Cisco equipment news at 11. Duh, Google is going to cross promote.