A week ago I wrote a piece here called Google Search Winners and Losers (and what does it mean for you?) The primary point I was making was that seeking to play SEO games (search engine optimization) with an author site was a waste of time, money and energy. While I supported the point with some Alexa charts for several book-oriented Web sites, that’s hardly empirical proof. Today, I happened to stumble on something that further supports that point, but and may indicate something even more intriguing.Here’s what happened: on April 12 I posted a review here of a New Yorker piece by Ian Frazier, and in that review, I compared Frazier’s writing favorably to that of John McPhee. This morning, while replying to a comment someone posted to that blog entry, I needed to remember the name of one of McPhee’s books, and ran a Google search of “John McPhee.” The result? The third hit of the search – out of 9,260,000 hits – was my blog entry. Huh?
So I tried “Ian Frazier,” and got the same result – it was the third hit, this time out of 3,530,000. Huh? again. It was then that I noticed that both links weren’t to the blog entry itself, but to the Google+ outtake take I’d posted.
There are at least three possible explanations for these results. One is that Google’s algorithm is doing some subtle things like giving higher rankings to recent posts (very likely, and not a new technique, and perhaps in fact this posts rank will fade) and perhaps even using semantic search techniques to recognize a review as a review and assigning hits of this type a higher presumptive value to searchers. And indeed it’s no secret that Google has made substantial investments in incorporating such techniques into its search technology.
The second is the possible relevance of the tens of thousands of pages I’ve written at this site: http://www.consortiuminfo.org/ and the fact that there are tens of thousands of third-party links back to those pages, which presumably gives my name some credibility in the Google algorithm. And in fact there are quite a few searches you can run (e.g., “consortium standards”) that will generate first search page hits to pages at that site.
The third, of course, is that Google might be biasing search results to favor its own social network. Now wouldn’t that be interesting?
Google, I’m sure, would strenuously deny that that’s the case. On the other hand, the same searches didn’t produce any hits on the first several pages at either Yahoo or Bing. To be fair, the overall results were startlingly different, so clearly the algorithms used at each site vary considerably in other ways as well.
But wait, it gets a bit weirder.
Someone else tried the same search, and didn’t get the same result. Huh? What could explain that? Incontrovertibly, Google must be somehow tailoring search results to the individual, applying the same approach to search that it does to targeting advertising to the pages you view. But based on what? Recent searches (as with advertising)? Other information it is keeping about the individual (shades of NSA)? So I tried the same search on the same computer, but using the Chrome browser – and sure enough I also got a different result.
What’s troubling about this experience is that however Google generated this result, it rendered a less useful result. It even raises the possibility that this type of customization could lead a user to more narrow, or even biased, results. Do we really need a Cable News approach to search?
I’ll leave to you which conclusions you wish to draw from this little experiment. But given the fact that the search took me to the Google+ squib rather than the blog entry itself, it couldn’t hurt to post the occasional link to your writing at Google+.
Have you discovered The Alexandria Project?
Another explanation is that Google search ranked only your own Google+ posts higher, and only for you.
What you’ve just experienced is called the “filter bubble” and the search engine “duckduckgo” was created to counter this, at least in part.
It gets scary too. Do our filter bubbles make us more inclined to think that our sometimes extreme views seem more mainstream and therefore more acceptable? Do filter bubbles become incubators for growing terrorists ?
What you’re experiencing is personalization. Log out and you won’t (necessarily) see the G+ posts or other content related to you ranked so highly.
Thanks for each of these comments, and Trev, indeed, I believe it’s very scary. This is what I was referring to with the reference to Cable News. In the US, at least, there are ample opportunities to pick the news service that consciously and deliberately feeds you what you want to hear, not only being selective, but subjective as well in what they feed you. That’s the last thing I’d want to get from a search engine.
I’m not actually surprised to see this happening, but what I am surprised by is the fact that there hasn’t been more publicity, and more importantly, debate over such a feature. At minimum, there ought to be an easy option at the top of the search screen where you can toggle personalization off and on. Yes, having it on could be great when looking for a restaurant or a movie. But when doing serious research, or looking for news, or any of a number of other obvious examples, you ought to be able to opt out (and I’m glad to hear that logging off would accomplish this, which makes sense).
But how many people are aware of this? And how much damage has already been done? To give one example, how many Wikipedians use Google search, and how many of them know to log out before doing research? Or how about the NSA? Would we want them to start “helping” us personalize what we learn from the Web?
I agree – it’s scary, and could get a lot scarier as Google gets better and better with its semantic search technology, since it can learn more and more from every search we do.
Solution: Never use Google for any purpose. If you treat Google with the same level of distrust as you would towards any Microsoft product you can’t go too wrong. Install the Firefox anti-Google extensions Googlesharing, Google Disconnect and No Google Analytics as well as the usual Ghostery and Adblock Plus. I wouldn’t use a Chromebook without cleaning out the original Google OS, either.
You are asking for easy option on top of the screen to turn it off.
On top right, you can see icons of a human and of a globe. Click on the globe.
I think this fits both of the requirements ‘easy’ and ‘on top of the screen’.
It would indeed, but it looks like you must have to go into the browser controls to find out how to make those icons display, as they aren’t displaying on my search screen. Or perhaps you’re using a different browser, like Chrome that integrates with Google better than Mozilla.
I just tried in Firefox, and the icons show up perfectly fine.
A screenshot of the feature http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s–vRfqkoVD–/c_fit,fl_progressive,w_636/18ix7jokea2qhjpg.jpg (note it in top-right). Sorry for not finding a higher-res screenshot.
Some people in recent blogposts do claim they can’t see this option to hide personalized results, but it shows on both Chrome and Firefox for me.
Aside from this, an alternative as documented by Google itself: https://support.google.com/websearch/answer/4540094?hl=en
Unfortunately, that’s not what my screen looks like. And when you go to the directions you provide the link to, not only is it a multistep process, but:
– the first step begins with a direction to go to that isn’t in the toolbar
– the directions indicate that it’s all or nothing, because it also tells you to delete your browsing history.
So to start with, it’s neither at the top of (my) screen, at least, but it’s not easy to change, and once you do, you can’t toggle back and forth.
Net net, you’re average user isn’t likely to end up with something easy and at the top of the screen so they can choose between one mode or the other.
@Lozz,
That seems to pose a quandary, then. What search engine does that leave you with that doesn’t have other issues associated with it? A partial answer might be to create an alias strictly for purposes like search, perhaps, and reject all cookies.
Duckduckgo and Startpage are a lot safer than most and claim they don’t record your IP address.Startpage also claim to use Google results with all your identifying information stripped off your search. They use SSL encryption as well as being located in Holland, so free from US jurisdiction. I have cookies enabled with third party blocked and Firefox set to clear everything when I close the browser. I also go to about:config and toggle “allow DOM storage” from “true” to “false”. With a new install I always click on the Firefox search bar and go down to “manage search engines” and delete Google, Bing and Amazon and just leave Wikipedia because I sometimes use that. Duckduckgo is a safer option in this list, also.
I’ve never been a Google user because they used to keep indefinite cookies and only reduced this to 2 years(they say) after being placed under considerable duress.
Thanks for the tip on these two search engines; the disambiguation feature on duckduckgo is particularly nice if it’s more effective than trying to narrow a search through usual or advanced search terms. Any idea how well that feature works?
No, I only used Duckduckgo for a short period before switching to Startpage because of its European location, though I now notice Duckduckgo has its servers in Singapore which is an improvement on being located in the US.Both of those search engines got a huge boost after Snowden.
@Lozz, thanks for all the responses. Yes, I read the Wikipedia entry for DuckDuckGo and it looks like they got a huge boost from the NSA revelations, which was continuing as of the last time the Wikipedia entry was revised (3 million daily searches to 4 million). Here’s the traffic graph from Alexa. The Wikipedia entry did not, however did not make any mention of the huge drop on 1/1/13 and continuing decline thereafter, until the NSA effect kicked in. http://traffic.alexa.com/graph?w=340&h=150&o=flt&c=1&y=t&b=ffffff&n=666666&r=2y&f=999999&u=duckduckgo.com
Even basic search has been deplorable. I’ve had to leave my computer and rummage fileing cabinets for exact URL’s printed on paper to get web pages to appear. Things that are unlikely to suffer duplicate listings I would think. There aren’t many websites or companies who are selling 16mm platic films reels today and there’s only one company named “Taylor” who manufactures them. None of my usuall search terms worked anymors. Even recanting and adding the domain name “tayloreel” with search terms didn’t budge any avail. Just two pages of irrelevant crap and eBay!