According to a newly leaked slide from a court case, Google may alter search results to try to convince you to spend money. Unfortunately, either this article misreads it, or the slide’s content has been altered so much that it’s hard to decipher. How do I find the correct Contextual Links?
There are many questions surrounding this case. Primarily, it goes against Don’t Be Evil principles.
1. When you search for “children’s clothing”
Google may be abusing its search engine monopoly to increase its profits. Reportedly, they’re altering your queries without your consent to match what advertisers are bidding on, an act that allegedly goes against its “Don’t Be Evil” mantra and could amount to fraud on a large scale.
Last week, Wired published an article alleging that Google alters your organic search queries to support its bottom line. As evidence, the article included a slide that appeared to display broad-matching ads against search queries – for instance, “children’s clothing” being replaced by results for the brand “NIKOLAI kidswear.”
Wasn’t Google changing anything else with their algorithm? Not quite! Instead, a hidden code appeared to convert searches to produce higher-paying ad campaigns and improved search results for Google.
Google appears to be keeping tabs on every search you perform and the length of time you spend clicking on each result before making adjustments accordingly. When a search generates many long clicks, it gets up-ranked, while short clicks receive less prominence; these adjustments allow Google to shape results, increasing trustworthiness while simultaneously increasing revenue streams.
The Wired slide failed to demonstrate this point clearly, yet it seems more likely that Google’s code is monitoring your behavior and altering its search results accordingly. This situation highlights a two-party problem: Google abuses its user base by changing search results without their consent while simultaneously abusing its paying business customers by extracting all the value they’ve extracted from its search engine.
2. When you search for “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear”
Testimony in an antitrust case against Google revealed that its algorithms manipulate billions of queries daily to generate results that encourage more buying decisions—an unconscionable practice you cannot opt out of. Select the best Authority Backlinks.
Google is notoriously adept at manipulating searches. When someone searches for “children’s clothing,” their system discreetly appends “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear” before showing results for department stores and NIKOLAI clothing they think you will click on—an attempt by them to generate keyword ads that pay Google and, therefore, increase revenue.
This kind of activity happens all too frequently, though not always through explicit searches. Since all this activity is hidden from users’ view, they don’t realize anything has changed until they begin seeing different results than before and wonder what could possibly be going on; from there, a conspiracy theory takes form.
Unchecked, this can lead to some pretty crazy ideas. Recently, on Twitter, someone suggested that artists must only link directly to Patreon in their bios or risk deprioritization by Google. Their purpose was likely to bypass its algorithm, and they didn’t consider how searches work or should work, leading them down an incorrect path that led them down many misinformed or paranoid paths about Google itself.
Keep in mind that reports of Google altering search queries are only partially true. Sure, its system sometimes tweaks your query slightly to make it more accurate, and depending on how long you click on them, it might even customize its results accordingly—but nothing like what Wired described, which was more like clickbait conjecture than actual reality. The best guide to finding Classified Profile Links.
3. When you search for “TJ Maxx”
There’s something fundamentally wrong with this situation. Your search query should remain sacred and cannot be altered without due cause or consent; it represents your intent, so any alteration would not only be bad manners but also unethical—something Google would never do due to its strict “Don’t Be Evil” ethos.
But it does happen: According to Wired’s article on this matter, billions of searches a day for “children’s clothing” get subtly changed into ones for “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear” without our knowledge. This often occurs so swiftly and silently that we remain unaware that your original search query had been subtly replaced with one focused more heavily on commercial interests.
Results generated from a later query tend to be more likely to trigger your behavior, like candy displays in a supermarket checkout line, leading to additional keyword ads that generate income for Google.
This case provides a perfect illustration of how conspiracy theories proliferate. We tend to take on stories that resonate with our preexisting beliefs and uncertainties without giving them due scrutiny. Therefore, we need to do a better job questioning everything we read or hear. That’s why I created Niche Gamer Tech!
4. When you search for “Amazon”
Rumors regarding Google altering search queries to increase revenue have circulated again, according to a Wired article. According to this theory, the company is purportedly altering your original input for commercial results without your knowledge; this supposedly occurs billions of times daily – completely unaware that your search query is being hijacked for Google’s profits.
An intriguing aspect of the ongoing antitrust hearings between Google and the Department of Justice is how much of their internal information has leaked out during court sessions, even though Google maintains they are not engaging in antitrust violations.
Megan Gray, former DuckDuckGo executive, and Google employee shared some fascinating insights about their search results manipulation in order to generate additional revenues. According to Megan, keywords and synonyms were altered in order to promote more commercial searches, with possible changes also made to the order of results, which might impact how often users click them.
Google is notoriously known to alter search results when you conduct an Amazon-related query; these original results have reportedly been replaced by links directly to Amazon product pages. But that’s not all; allegations exist of Google manipulating local, sports, and restaurant results to make money as well.
Google claims this move is in order to deliver search results that are both relevant and likely to be clicked upon, using an automated system that tracks engagement with search results, such as whether they receive “long clicks” or not; those receiving long clicks are considered more pertinent and valuable, so they’re promoted at the top of results pages while short clicks receive less consideration; any searches with long clicks tend to get promoted higher on results pages while ones receiving short clicks tend to get demoted further down on page.
Some may dismiss this claim as an exaggerated conspiracy theory, but it’s important to remember that such claims often resonate with preexisting beliefs and anxieties. No evidence supports its reality, though it’s certainly within the realm of possibility.
