Forum Moderators: open
You don't get to be a verb unless you're doing something right. Do a Google search on "ford," for example, and the first batch of results includes the pages for the Ford Motor Company, the Ford Foundation, the Betty Ford Center, Harrison Ford and Gerald R. Ford? all good guesses at what a user would be looking for, particularly considering that Google estimates its index holds more than 16 million pages including the word.
Rest of the article continued at
[nytimes.com...]
Climb every mountain, <b>ford</b> every stream Follow every ...
"And when it comes to more specialized topics, the rankings give disproportionate weight to opinions of the activists and enthusiasts that may be at odds with the views of the larger public."
Boy is that the truth. There is a myth going around regarding a practice in the history of my topic. Even state and federal sites have written it up as truth. (aaauuuggghhh)
Google does tend to help myths keep going.
"..the rankings will mirror the interests of the groups that aggregate around particular topics: the bloggers, experts, hobbyists and, often, the crackpots."
So do 'spammers and affiliates' fall into one of these 4 interest groups - or does he search on different terms to me?
:)
on the other hand Google also generally gives more prominance to *any* non-mainstream source, as it takes less money to publish and distribute on the web than via print or broadcast media, and sometimes these sources are more interesting, diverse, and more independent than info from the mainstream media oligarchy.
To me that makes up for the publicity given to perceived "crank" info eg. UFO's, extremists etc.
After all we are all adults, and should have developed the ability to know that just because something is published, in print or on the web, it is not necesarilly true. The web has given those with less money and contacts more of a chance to let their opinions, views, and more importantly - information - be made available as entry costs are minimal.
That said, checking the source and the actual logic of the arguments becomes more important when it comes to the web. More importantly though, it is sometimes good that info on the web is trated with more sceptisim as content providers will be forced to attribute sources etc to have credibility.
Fascinating that this article came from the NYT. Normally i would trust the content just because their banner is on top, but given the findings on one particular senior NYT scribe of late, not even the NYT, for all their resources and money, can be perfect!
[edited by: chiyo at 4:32 am (utc) on May 18, 2003]
Spammers take note - you're IN!
Hehe.. nod nod pr pr wink wink say no more.
I knew it! those pesky SE's have got insiders listening all the time. Conspiracy Theory - not just for nerds anymore!
Chris.
P.S. Rocket Launchers...
You could ask yourself if Vivisimo's pre-clustering on the left [vivisimo.com] is not more clear (click on more on the bottom).
also mentioned here:
[webmasterworld.com...]
Seen from a Google's eye view, in fact, the Web is less like a piazza than a souk — a jumble of separate spaces, each with its own isolated chatter. The search engines cruise the alleyways to listen in on all of these conversations, locate the people who are talking about the subject we're interested in, and tell us which of them has earned the most nods from the other confabulators in the room. But just because someone is regarded as a savant in the barbershop doesn't mean he'll pass for wise with the people in the other stalls.(bold is mine)
Nice analogy, however point is that most nods from within the barbershop, in general, do not count much in Google's algo, as far as I understand.
