
Google's fight to keep search a secret - timr
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20010696-265.html?tag=topStories1
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kiba
Why does the hell that somebody think that they have the right to force Google
to have its algorithm published?

It's not like the government is propping up Google or that if anybody is
locked in as a user in the search market. There are already a huge number of
search engine and information filters.

~~~
jessriedel
I generally agree, but there _is_ an issue if Google has a monopolistic market
share, even if there are many other options.

As you say, there is very little customer lock-in, so there should be a high
bar for calling Google a monopoly. On the other hand, there is a large entry
cost for the search martket.

~~~
bigiain
Is there really a "large cost of entry"? I somehow doubt Duck Duck Go has a
multi-billion dollar war chest backing it...

And Google's "monopoly" is very much based on it's reputation - remember how
quickly we all jumped ship from Alta Vista - and surely Bing and Yahoo provide
enough competition that if Google _were_ manipulating search returns in
obviously monopolistic ways, people would notice and publish evidence soon
enough?

~~~
jessriedel
First, Duck Duck Go may be popular with HNers, but it has insignificant market
share. It clearly did not have the capital to make a dent.

Second, Google has an astounding 63% market share, which would be considered a
monopoly in almost all industries.

Third, people "noticed" Microsoft's monopolistic tactics, but that doesn't
mean that they weren't effective or didn't continue for a long time, largely
unpunished.

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moultano
"Google needs to figure out a way to shore up the public's confidence in its
integrity "

[citation needed] I haven't heard "the public" complaining about not knowing
how Google ranks results. That seems to be limited to spammers and the
journalists they dupe into their sob stories.

~~~
patio11
The best lie the devil ever told was convincing the world he did not exist,
and the best triumph of Google's PR campaign is convincing developers that any
developer interested in Google rankings who is not an employee of theirs is by
definition a web spammer.

Disclaimer: I am very freaking interested in Google rankings, since they
determine my ability to eat.

~~~
ars
Then you are a "spammer", because you care for your results to be high, but I
care for the results to be useful.

Can you honestly say you would prefer that your site be ranked lower than that
of a competitor with better information?

~~~
Tichy
What if my site is better, but my competitors site ranks higher? Definitely
the case for one of my sites.

I know for a fact that the "just provide good content" line by Google is
complete bullshit.

~~~
moultano
I'm sorry to hear that. I work in search quality at Google, and we really do
try to do our best, but it's a very hard problem.

"Just provide good content" indeed isn't enough. What we should also be saying
is that you shouldn't count on Google's search results to do your marketing
for you. It's difficult for Google's search results to "lead" the internet. If
something isn't already somewhat popular, it's hard for us to discover it,
though we try very hard. What I'd suggest is to try to market your site
through more conventional ways without worrying about search engines. If real
people demonstrate that they like your site when exposed to it, the ball is in
our court, and it's really our fault for not ranking you well enough.

However, if not enough people have been exposed to it, there's still more you
need to do on your end.

Send the site along, and I'll see if there are any issues I can tell you
about.

~~~
Tichy
Thanks! It only has a couple of hundred hits per day, and it is an astrology
site, so I am not sure if it is worth your personal attention :-) Although of
course it would be great. Also of course I'd be glad to be of assistance to
Google in case I can help to improve the algorithm :-)

I know it is an uphill struggle for Google against all the spammers and I am
sure Google is trying to rank the best sites as the highest ones. It just gets
frustrating at times.

The site is <http://mondhandy.de> \- page 6 for the keyword "mondkalender" (it
is also German). Some of the sites before it are fair, but I think it is
obvious that there are many that are worse than my site. For example, some are
just sites where you can order a book about the moon calendar.

I think I did most of the "on site" improvements, but I don't have many
inbound links, and the domain name is weird.

I plan to move to <http://mondkalender.us> soon, hoping that I won't be
punished too much for running a German site on a .us domain. Also finally want
to launch an English language version (although I think the topic is not
popular outside of Germany).

Also plan to improve the widget - just wondering, do iframes also count as
inbound links? That was my secret master plan to generate links, to make lots
of blogs include my widget. The widget really needs improving, though.

Once I entered the site in some catalogs. A while later I noticed the ranking
had really tanked. I guess that was a big mistake. I tried to remove it, but
it wasn't possible for all of them. On the other hand it seems it shouldn't be
too bad, otherwise it could be used to damage the competition (enter them into
catalogs, too).

Anyway, I plan to give the site one last push, so that I can say I have tried
what I could. Also planning on an Android and an iPhone app, so that I have
everything covered. Suggestions are of course very welcome.

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SoftwareMaven
If Google is forced to out their algorithm, Coke better be forced to out its
recipe. They are both trade secrets at the heart of a competitive market
space, though I think it would be far more catastrophic for Google's algorithm
to be outed than Coke's recipe.

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waterlesscloud
I'm only half a Google fan, I think they do a lot wrong, but keeping their
search algorithm a secret isn't one of those things.

If people really didn't trust Google, they'd go elsewhere.

There's an agenda at work here, very obviously.

~~~
gnok
That's a bit of a strawman argument. There's a wide gap between the "totally
trust" and "do not trust" groups. I would think most people would fit in that
gap. The ones who do go elsewhere are in the "do not trust" group. I can't be
sure, but I would think the "totally trust" and "do not trust" groups are
minorities in Google's user-verse.

~~~
Ardit20
How is that a strawman argument? He is stating that he does not blindly follow
google, nor does he criticise google at every turn. He is a sceptic. As you
say most of us are. We use it because on balance we like it. If we saw any
evidence to suggest that something is wrong, then we will not like it, thus do
something about it.

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llimllib
> Simply put, there are a growing number of regulators, agitators, and regular
> people who just don't trust Google when it comes to the integrity of its
> search results.

More simply put, there are a growing number of * who would like to get a piece
of that google action.

------
ohashi
This is silly. The users aren't the ones complaining. It's those who have
everything to lose and cannot cope with a new reality.

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pwim
_"if search engines were forced to disclose their algorithms and not just the
signals they use, or, worse, if they had to use a standardized algorithm,
spammers would certainly use that knowledge to game the system, making the
results suspect."_

Regardless of whether or not it would be a good idea for Google to be required
to open their algorithm, I don't like this reason. It is security by
obscurity. Spammers can only take advantage of flaws in Google's algorithm. By
opening it to the public, I'm sure the algorithm itself would be improved.

The real reason Google doesn't want to expose it is that it is a competitive
advantage. They should be upfront about that at least.

------
benologist
I think the government should focus on the spam Google funds. I don't even
remember the last time I saw a trashy spam site that wasn't plastered with
Google ads. Between SEO and spammers machine-generating or just copy-pasting
content it's no wonder a lot of people feel left out of search results.

------
DanielBMarkham
Interesting.

Search engine providers who are also advertisers have a agent problem -- there
is moral hazard. Anybody who has money betting on where an item shows up in a
result list should not also be able to create the list. This is like going to
the Ford car dealership and asking for an analysis of all the types of cars to
buy. Even if the Ford guys give you an independently-created report recognized
as the world's best authority on car purchases, it doesn't feel right. In
ethics, if it looks wrong, it is wrong.

Having said that, regulating anything that returns a list is idiotic. Even
regulating Google because of it's gatekeeper status doesn't work -- these
things always sound good for the edge cases, but once you let the camel's nose
in under the tent, the rest of the camel is soon to follow

I think what's called for here is an industry-sponsored certification program.
Use outside auditors, establish quality metrics, create a set of public
ethical guidelines. You can always have trusted outsiders check your work
against those guidelines, even in IP-rich, and trade secret areas. Companies
do this all the time.

Google's (and Microsoft before it) main problem is that it is successful. Lots
of political-type folks see that success and imagine all sorts of ways that
the government can/should get in there and muck around. In this case I'm on
Google's side.

But as far as thinking Google is somehow magic, that SEO is evil, that
"writing good content" is all you need for rankings? All of that is bullshit
put out by Google to make themselves more of an authority than they actually
are. They run a program to put things in an ordered list. People are going to
hack the program. Neither of these two things are good, bad, or especially
interesting. The interesting thing here, to me, is the degree of Google
fanboy-ism that some folks have. Wish I could bottle that up.

Google is just an advertising agency who had some cool ideas on ranking a
decade or more ago. They are not a bunch of knights riding in on white horses.
Oddly enough, their success is the very thing that's hurting them.

