

Typing "Sell" in Google Finance redirected to Apple Inc. - nh
http://www.google.com/finance?q=sell

======
edj
I always wonder with things like this just how many people within Google know
about it.

A single renegade engineer? A handful? Or A team having some fun with the
approval of their managers and everything?

Is there an internal policy about easter eggs? If so, what is it?

------
loceng
"sell" showsup in Apple's description multiple times. It's just basic SEO. Not
an Easter Egg. Though Google potentially could have set the algorithm to make
that be the result - but Apple just needs to change the description then to
see if it holds..

~~~
nivla
Since its a finance site, it should weigh the stock symbol over any
description. Given that there is already a stock "MCX:SELL" that is also
displayed at the autocomplete, the redirect should have gone there instead.

I would like to give Google the benefit of doubt but since AAPL doesn't even
show up at the auto-complete, it clearly looks like a prank by an employee.

~~~
surrealize
How many people are searching for MCX:SELL, and how many are searching for
Apple? AAPL's trading volume is like four orders of magnitude higher than
MCX:SELL's.

~~~
catshirt
yes, and i bet all none of the AAPL shareholders found the stock by searching
"sell" on Google finance.

------
CesareBorgia
Weird...'ponzi scheme' doesn't redirect to Facebook.

~~~
photorized
'evil' doesn't redirect to GOOG either.

~~~
loceng
The term 'evil' is diluted too much amongst Google, Apple and Facebook for any
single entity to hold the title.

------
glfomfn
The query matches a term that can be found in the stocks description. Give it
a try yourself, copy something unique enough from the description and use it
as a query, you will be redirected to that stocks page.

Romance, Mystery: <https://www.google.com/finance?q=Romance%2C+Mystery>

X.commerce: <https://www.google.com/finance?q=X.commerce>

Its unbelievable how many people in this thread accuse Google, conspiracy
theories and all that. The thread was up-voted enough to be on front page.
Don't believe everything you hear, do some research on it first ?

------
biturd
Is this something the SEC may technically be able to get their panties in a
bunch about? It could potentially sway public sentiment.

It could be translated as "huge smart company that knows algorithms better
than most have been trying to predict the stick market." Their current
recommendation on AAPL is to sell.

~~~
michaelt
There are hundreds of companies, individuals, analysts and twitter bots giving
out stock tips, recommendations, target prices and whatnot. As long as you're
not acting on insider information, is there anything illegal about advising
people to sell a stock?

------
xentronium
Nah, searching for "worst" returns Konami. I'm quite sure it's not intentional
but dynamic instead.

~~~
opinali
This probably happens due to Konami's title "CROWS × WORST - Saikyou
Densetsu", which is apparently recent and popular. If you search for "crows",
Konami also appears as an answer although only the 9th result because there
are several companies with "crow" in their name.

------
eliasmacpherson
Don't be evil, they said. Surely there's some sort of hypothetical "Securities
Exchange Commission" for this type of shenanigan. I don't like the way they
own <http://www.duck.com> either.

EDIT: thanks for the correction, I had written Do No Evil without thinking.
Check the second Google result for 'Do No Evil', as you say it's a common
enough mistake to make.

EDIT2: as one of the commenters has pointed out below, the owner of duck.com
was a previous acquisition, that owned duck.com prior to duck duck go being a
competitor to Google. So owning duck.com is fine with me! I thought it was a
prank/jibe on Google's part. Thanks for the info.

~~~
prezjordan
Hm, I'm confused - why do they own www.duck.com? And why is this a bad thing?

~~~
nodesocket
Competitor -- <http://duckduckgo.com>

~~~
loceng
Fairly sure they owned duck.com first

------
photorized
Someone just wrote on CNN.com forums:

Hey folks, I'm writing from Google. This isn't deliberate -- our algorithms
seem to be keying off of the words "sell" and "sells" in the description of
this very popular stock symbol. We're working on how to adjust things so it
doesn't happen anymore. Thanks... back to the eggnog.

~~~
darrellsilver
Here's the link to this CNN story:
[http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/29/google-finance-
apple-...](http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/29/google-finance-apple-
amazon/)

------
vidyesh
'over sold' takes you to Amazon <https://www.google.com/finance?q=over+sold>

------
jamesmcn
I learned about Google a decade ago when "worse than satan himself" brought up
either Bill Gates or Microsoft. I worked at Microsoft at the time. Everyone I
knew thought it was hilarious, and it spread through the company like
wildfire. Within a week or two, everyone was using Google as their default
search engine.

(I may be mis-remembering the exact search string, but it was something like
that. Keep in mind that Bill's philanthropy had not become public at that
time.)

------
fear91
Note: It's not a result provided by a neutral algorithm. Contrary to what
debunkers want to say, it has been hard coded.

For example, search for other often occuring words such as those:

"over" "before" "using" "between"

Those searches give a listing of companies having these words in their
description.

Searching for "sell" redirects straight to Apple stock even though many other
descriptions have this word in them. Several have way higher density of the
"sell" word than the Apple description.

The redirect for "buy" search is reasonable as the Best Buy has it in its
name. Apple has no sell in its name.

It's fishy to say the least.

EDIT:

This can be proven even further by running a specialized search query to the
main google.com page:

site:finance.google.com sell "quotes & news"

If you use this query, which uses the neutral algo, you won't see APPLE
anywhere near the top.

~~~
codeka
_> which uses the neutral algo_

It doesn't use "the" neutral algorithm, it uses _a_ neutral algorithm, one
that's not based on keywords at all, but PageRank. The finance sites search
(presumably) has nothing to do with individual result pages PageRank and
therefore it would return completely different results to the main google
search algorithm.

Otherwise, why does 'site:finance.google.com facebook "quotes & news"' not
return Facebook? Or even 'site:finance.google.com appl "quotes & news"' not
return Apple?

------
tokenadult
The reported behavior has now changed. The latest results for a search on the
word "sell" on Google Finance

<http://www.google.com/finance?q=sell>

show a rather boring list of companies, with no prominence given to Apple.

~~~
joeblau
Yeah, it looks like they "fixed the glitch" :)

------
nodesocket
I wonder if `buy`, `sell`, and `over sold` are dynamic and actually a result
of Google finances algorithm generating them instead of being hard coded.

------
matznerd
Google is a search company at heart. They use keyword relevance in many of
their products. Apple is a company that generates clicks when it is in
headlines. Stock websites constantly write linkbait articles about Apple. Many
along the lines of "5 Reasons Why You Should Sell Apple Stock Now" or "Is
Apple Overvalued" etc...I bet if you researched, you would find that there are
a high number of stock market related websites linking to the google finance
page for Apple that also use the word sell as a keyword. Hence the association
between "apple" and "sell" in the google finance search algorithm. Or maybe,
it's just an Easter egg.

------
justhw
<http://www.google.com/finance?q=buy> takes you to best buy

------
niggler
This may be due to the flurry of articles recommending to sell apple ...

------
zaidf
If this is indeed an easter egg, it shows a serious lack of judgement on the
part of at least one or more (somewhat powerful) individual at google.

------
jjoe
It's very possible the code change is a reactive fix to seek SEC compliance.
Now that it's posted on HN and other places, the impact of the "Sell" query
result is significant.

------
guywithabike
Does that constitute financial advice?

~~~
tszming
In the footer: "Information is provided "as is" and solely for informational
purposes, not for trading purposes or advice, and may be delayed."

------
smegel
So the conclusion is that Finance has "Im feeling lucky" switched on in a very
subtle way by default?

------
mburshteyn
This was on reddit all day.

------
senthilnayagam
what if it is a conspiracy, they will get away paying a fine of about
10-25million$ thats how SEC works, people will forget this in couple of days
or weeks based on media coverage

------
albertyw
And searching for "Buy" redirects to "Best Buy". Right.....

~~~
nodesocket
buy redirecting to best buy, is the correct search algo. I think sell going to
Apple is intentional though.

------
__abc
Didn't redirect for me

------
rotskoff
Not anymore.

------
yanw
It's not an "easter egg": [http://searchengineland.com/google-finance-brings-
up-apple-s...](http://searchengineland.com/google-finance-brings-up-apple-
stock-chart-for-search-on-sell-143690)

~~~
Dylan16807
And yet they apparently rushed out a code change, which disappoints me. I
understand adjusting the code, but a politicized factor of _rushing_ out a
change to something that isn't a bug just because you're worried it'll be
misinterpreted is something that makes me frown.

Unless google normally gets code changes put to production in a couple hours
on a weekend night, in which case I take it back and hurrah google!

~~~
jxi
Better safe than sorry? Why is that disappointing that they "fixed" it
quickly? Heck, just look at the comments in this post and people are already
pulling out that tired "Don't be evil" quote again and trying to blame Google
for this or somehow associate this as some kind of evil action.

~~~
Dylan16807
It's disappointing if they only prioritize fixes that could make them falsely
look bad.

Emphasis on 'if' and 'falsely'.

------
dfgdfgdfggf
When looking at the trend for Apple, I was surprised. Earlier this year some
people expected Apple could be the first company to reach the market cap of
$1.000.000.000. Right now they're under the $500.000.000 from $700.000.000
last september.

