How Google Interferes With Its Search Algorithms and Changes Your Results - WSJ - 17 views
www.wsj.com/...anges-your-results-11573823753
google internet algorithms searching digital life online
shared by Martin Leicht on 15 Nov 19
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a shift from its founding philosophy of “organizing the world’s information,” to one that is far more active in deciding how that information should appear.
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Google keeps blacklists to remove certain sites or prevent others from surfacing in certain types of results. These moves are separate from those that block sites as required by U.S. or foreign law,
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Far from being autonomous computer programs oblivious to outside pressure, Google’s algorithms are subject to regular tinkering from executives and engineers who are trying to deliver relevant search results, while also pleasing a wide variety of powerful interests and driving its parent company’s more than $30 billion in annual profit.
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Google made more than 3,200 changes to its algorithms in 2018, up from more than 2,400 in 2017 and from about 500 in 2010
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testing showed wide discrepancies in how Google handled auto-complete queries and some of what Google calls organic search results
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Google said 15% of queries today are for words, or combinations of words, that the company has never seen before, putting more demands on engineers to make sure the algorithms deliver useful results.
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ALGORITHMS ARE effectively recipes in code form, providing step-by-step instructions for how computers should solve certain problems. They drive not just the internet, but the apps that populate phones and tablets.