Google, journalism and being evil ...

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Richard Wiggins <richard.wiggins () gmail com>
Date: August 5, 2005 11:13:31 PM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Cc: i-p () umich edu
Subject: Re: [IP] Google, journalism and being evil ...


Dave,

Oh good grief, this conspiracy speculation is just plain silly.

-- The hits at the top of the Google hit list are from prominent  
sites that have a high PageRank:  News.com, ZDnet, ABC News, Seattle  
Post-Intelligencer, etc.

-- MSN doesn't have PageRank.  (That's why Google is winning.)  The  
very first hit on MSN for the same allegedly suspect search is:

BayouBuzz.com - Louisiana Politics and News

This story has nothing to do with Lousiana Politics and News.   
Sometimes search ranking algorithms do odd things.

-- The repeated use of the word "charade" is from headlines used in  
stories from CNet and from the AP.  It should be no surprise that  
news outlets lead with the most eye-catching claim of the combants.   
And if Google puts the headlines from prominent news outlets at the  
top of the list, you see the same words throughout the hit list. 

-- Anyone who has watched Google News carefully since its inception  
understands that the same wire story is poorly de-duped across  
multiple news outlets.  This story is now old enough that the regular  
Google Web search has picked it up.  PageRank takes it from there,  
delivering duplicated stories from the media outlets with the highest  
PageRank.  

-- For several reasons, "Dr. Lee court documents Google Microsoft" is  
not likely to yield the results the reporter sought.  It is frankly a  
rather naive search for this breaking news.  If the reporter seeks  
court documents, he should contact the court.

It is quite a remarkable thing for someone to assume that if a search  
engine doesn't yield the documents he expected based on the keywords  
he randomly chose, then therefore the engineers are engaged in a  
conspiracy theory.

/rich
Google: Microsoft Lawsuit Is a 'Charade'
Google Says That the Microsoft Lawsuit Is a 'Charade' Aimed at  
Scaring People By ELIZABETH M. GILLESPIE Associated Press Writer


On 8/5/05, David Farber <dave () farber net> wrote:

Begin forwarded message:

From: Lars Poulsen <lars () beagle-ears com >
Date: August 5, 2005 8:19:09 PM EDT
To: dave () farber net
Subject: Google, journalism and being evil ...


Dave, for IP if you wish.

Yesterday, my business partner alerted me to this story on
webpronews (among his several hats, he does search engine
optimization for our company's website). This echoes in
interesting ways with the recent stories about Google taking
revenge on journalists that embarrass Google.

I found the same pattern described in the article when I
searched on Google and MSN for "Google Microsoft Dr Lee lawsuit",
so the effect is fairly robust.

/ Lars Poulsen

-----------------------------------------

http://www.webpronews.com/insidesearch/insidesearch/
wpn-56-20050804MSNGooglesDrLeeLawsuitSERPsVastlyDifferent.html

MSN, Google's Dr. Lee Lawsuit SERPs Vastly Different

Jason Lee Miller | Staff Writer | 2005-08-04


As everybody in the Google and Microsoft camps has been Kai-Fu
fighting, the logical thing to relay to you this morning was the
report that Google anticipated a lawsuit and was prepared to pay Dr.
Lee, lawsuit or not, work or not, for up to a year. But as I was
searching for these court documents, I came across something very
interesting. MSN and Google are delivering search results about the
case with opposing messages. Hmmmmm.

If you've read the Dogpile report that search results across the
major search engines only had a 1.1% overlap, then it is not
surprising that results may vary. But this variation is somewhat
suspect when you consider the players involved.

When the search terms "Dr. Lee court documents Google Microsoft" were
entered into Google, the majority of results were emblazoned with the
phrase "lawsuit is a charade" in large comforting letters, repeated
again again again.

That's interesting, I thought. I wonder what MSN returns?

As I suspected, there was one link, in the middle, with the "charade"
reference. The rest were to the tune of "Microsoft wins round against
Google," and "Ex-Microsoft Exec Barred From Google Job."

Could this be a coincidence? Or is this brilliant PR algorithmic  
manipulation?

Next, I did what any fair researcher would do, I check Yahoo! for a
control group. Yahoo! seemed fairly balanced on the matter and
delivered the most current listings-including #3 result for
WebProWorld discussion, thank you.

Here are the screen caps, submitted for your perusal. And just for
efficiency, here's your link to WebProWorld for discussion.

...



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