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Creationists Manipulating Search Results
reallocate writes: It looks like some Creationists are manipulating search results to ensure websites pushing religion are appearing in response to queries about science. Ask Google "What happened to the dinosaurs?" and you'll see links to Creationist sites right at the top. (And, right now, several hits to sites taking note of it.) Google has a feedback link waiting for you to use it.
Their zeal to push their bullshit in a vain attempt to still appear relevant. Kinda like dinosaurs in a tar pit... how fitting.
Maybe someone should tell them that nobody outside the US even remotely takes that "controversy" serious? I do not know a single politician outside the US who would think that even remotely considering pushing an agenda as harebrained as creationism is anything but political suicide. Hell, even our ultra-conservatives would not even touch that shit with a 10 foot pole, knowing that they'd be looked at like they just claimed the tooth fairy existed.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think the fear is more that kids will see this stuff while doing research for school (especially in earlier grades where they don't necessarily know better) and take it for granted. I had a professor in college who showed me a site that popped up when searching for information about the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. that was actually run by a racist group, which contained blatantly false information. As I recall, it appeared near the top of Google results at the time, but this was five or six years ago.
I think this kind of stuff should remain up, though. There's the free speech issue, but I think it's a really good way to teach kids how to find proper sources of information.
I liken this to an expression of belief.
An expression in which I advocate the freedom of, even (and especially) if it makes throw up in my mouth a tiny bit.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
SEO/Marketing Asshole here:
This is slightly different than your typical manipulation in that Google is showing the result outside of the typical organic results. Google has been pulling in 'facts' under its Knowledge Graph program to return 'factual' information for common search terms (a common example is the generic name for name-brand medicine).
Having read the patent that describes the Knowledge Graph they're suppose to validate any 'facts' with Wikipedia and other trusted data sources before returning those 'facts' in the Knowledge Graph.
This is a serious fuck up on Google's part if jerks like Ham can get his stupid book and obviously-wrong facts into the Knowledge Graph. In reality the story should be about Google getting played not more focus on made-up bullshit that people made up to rectify the bible with science.
Actually, there was a big stunning double rainbow over Dublin last week as the people of Ireland rejected the teachings of the Church and approved same sex marriage.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/u...
Texas, on the other hand, outlawed gay marriage and got deadly floods and tornadoes.
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/26/...
Coincidence?
You are welcome on my lawn.
Yep. But christians are supposedly not supposed to lie. SEO of that sort is a form of lying.
Bing returns the same results so unless both knowledge graphs are operating the same I would imagine it's a much simpler explanation: both sites rely on "answer" websites for answers. If you ask any question most often the results are Yahoo.Answers, Answers.com and wikihow. My guess would be that "Answers in Genesis" overloads their weighting for "answers" URLs associated with "Questions" on this topic.
If they actually overloaded the Knowledge Graph it would appear in a special box at the top of the results. In this instance it's still just a link. If you search "Circumference of the earth" you'll get a knowledge graph result with an "official answer".