To Google or Not to Google, is that the question!
Firefox; google search web; Microsoft edge; Goggle Chrome; Xfinity – enhanced by Google
Is Google compromised by its own globalism and corporate corruption, including a desire to work socio-political manipulations into the basic search function in order to push the obvious “all-important” Orwellian agenda, and the all-pervasive presence of bought-and-paid-for garbage that gets shoehorned into the so-called results.
Does Google reflect most national media views in results as well as prioritizing matches with past searches from the same device? Was YouTube (under full control of Google) recently outed for skewing its search results toward the left in all areas?
Is there a bias in search results towards anything pro-liberal policies (in the US) and pro-liberal (US) news reports? If you did a search on any controversial political topic do you notice any information manipulation? When searching U-Tube, does it appear that Left-leaning mainstream media videos show up at the top of results, while conservative results are pushed way down? Google, which bought YouTube in 2006, denies manipulating the results. In a statement by Google the company claimed, “Google has never manipulated or modified the search results or content in any of its products to promote a particular political ideology.”
But Google News head, Richard Gingras, recently said “What we will always do is bias the efforts as best we can toward authoritative content — particularly in the context of breaking news events, because major crises do tend to attract the bad actors.” So, Google does boost news sites that it feels are reputable and it’s these sites – like CNN – that typically dominate in the results. Do reputable news sources tend to lean left?
Google said that in fact, searches on Google are biased, but that bias is entirely intentional. The bias in this case is yours Google says.
Search results have been personalized so that they’re more relevant to each searcher. Things like your location, your past search history, the way you structure your query and several other signals will be used by Google to filter the results you’re shown.
In a recent study that looked at Google’s impact on political beliefs. This study found that voter preferences can shift by as much as 20% due to biased search rankings and that effect can be even higher in some demographic groups.
So!
Is Bias relative? If you truly understand how to manipulate Google, the basis behind black hat SEQ’s (search engine optimizers) systems have rules. Since few know how to exploit them, you get what the system is designed to show you, not necessarily what you want.
If Google is the “Great Satan of the internet”, is the solution as simple as that expressed by Herman Cain and his infamous line “blame yourself”. I believe he was quoted as saying, as long as “Google” is a generic phrase for Internet search, their dominant position is assured. That said, you can do something about it. Use something else or develop an alternative.
With that said, the trouble with the “alternate” engines is that they’re either trying to use gimmicky interfaces and “specialty” results, and/or they’re basically underpowered offshoots of Google as it is in its present semi-dysfunctional state (in some cases, they’re even powered by Google).
What we need is a fully functional search engine that does what Google USED to do before it became compromised by its own globalism and corporate corruption where one works socio-political manipulations into the basic search function in order to push perhaps, to some at any rate, the obvious “all-important” Orwellian agenda, and the all-pervasive presence of bought-and-paid-for garbage that gets shoehorned into the so-called results.
Can someone with a basic bit of knowledge and resources simply reinvent another “wheel” that rolls the way a wheel is supposed to roll?
So, in its stead, do we develop our own search engine or use multiple existing ones to arrive at unbiased input and dictionaries that have not been radically edited?
What is this mysterious Google algorithm that squashes searches and information?
The Google core algorithm is the Holy Grail for digital marketers and SEOs. This shrouded, maniacally complicated, and ever-changing set of algorithms almost immediately made all other search engines obsolete, made billions of dollars, and has kept SEOs and webmasters scratching their heads since the late nineties. Google has kept their “special formula” and adjustments to the algorithm close to the chest, releasing little information to the public.
So, are there alternatives?
Most people don’t want three dozen search engines, especially people who are not trained internet users. Most people want a single search engine that delivers three key features:
- Relevant results (results you are interested in)
- Uncluttered, easy-to-read interface
- Helpful options to broaden or tighten a search
So, what is a person supposed to do? There are plenty of Google alternatives and many of these players may offer a better search experience, depending on your needs. What are some of your alternatives?
Google isn’t the only game in town and isn’t even the best alternative for many specific tasks and needs. Maybe our daily lives shouldn’t need to balance on the fickle algorithm changes of the world’s most valuable company.
Your choices include:
Addict-o-matic; Ask.com, AOL Search, archive.org (internet archive); Bing Search; Blekko; Boardreader; BuzzSumo; Creative Commons Search (CC Search); CrunchBase; Dogpile; DuckDuckGo; Firefox; Giphy; info.com; Infospace; Ixquick; IMyWebSearch; Quantcast; Quora; SocialMention; SlideShare; StartPage (originally Ixquick); Technorati; Topsy:Torbrowser; Vimeo; WebCrawler; Wolfram|Alpha; Yahoo; Yandex; Yippy (Yippy.com); Webopedia Search; WolframAlpha; Wow.
And I am sure you can add a few.