

Evidence that Google skews search results - treefire86
http://www.wired.com/2015/06/google-wu-study/

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Nadya
_> The team then randomly displayed one of the two sets of results to 2,690
subjects. What they found was that users were 45-percent more likely to
actually click through the search results on the second version, which
included only organic results. What that means, they write, is that by prizing
OneBox over organic links Google is serving up less useful search results,
which is therefore damaging to the end user._

Or that users obtained the information they needed from OneBox and, therefore,
were not required to click on a link - making the search results _more_
useful. Search should be defined as "obtained the information I was searching
for" and not "clicked through to a website."

Counterpoint example:

Searching google for "define 'word'" gives me the definition of the word in
OneBox without me having to click to dictionary.com or merriam-webster or any
other similar online dictionary. The result? A better search result that
doesn't require an additional click-through!

E:

 _> The problem with all this is that, generally, even though they are the
ones being harmed, consumers don’t care all that much—at least not enough to
change their habits._

Am I the only one to find fault with this claim? If users don't give a shit,
has it ever occurred to these people that maybe, just maybe, users aren't
being harmed and therefore... don't give a shit? If Google didn't provide the
information that people wanted when they searched for something, they would do
this amazing thing called _use another search engine_.

