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I am conflicted. I think that Daily Mail deserves it all. At the same time I don’t think it should be Google’s duty to limit the reach of a bad publication by m

I am conflicted. I think that Daily Mail deserves it all. At the same time I don’t think it should be Google’s duty to limit the reach of a bad publication by means of algorithmic changes to its opaque Search product.

daleharvey 7y ago
You think it should be googles duty to promote bad publications by means of the algorithm it generated?
- creaghpatr 7y ago
  It should be their duty to be transparent about the matter.
  - spookthesunset 7y ago
    And how to you propose this be done? Google has to order its results somehow. How do you propose they order them?
- tomohawk 7y ago
  That is not the issue. There is a claim that Google manually intervened to DEmote the "bad publication". Should that be Google's duty? If so, what is Google's responsibility with regard to transparency and accountability?
  - sam0x17 7y ago
    Much more likely that they made some global changes, and dailymail happened to be one of the hardest-hit high profile sites, because the amount of click-baity untrue stuff they publish.
SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
Google has to do some sort of curation, or we're left back in the early 2000's where people are just throwing keywords up for the google crawler to find. Is there a difference between those sites and the daily mail? Oh yeah, but I don't know where it sits on the spectrum when compared to those old sites and more reputable news agencies.
dariusj18 7y ago
Except the whole reason Google rose to be the best search engine is because they created a better search. More context awareness and better algorithms to find quality/relevant posts. As the SEO meta game changes, so must they, to stay ahead of those who want to game the system.
- Shivetya 7y ago
  once they decided to get into the game of determining what is and what is not the truth is where they step over the line. if I search for something I want what is popular to come up, not was is approved. daily mail isn't gaming the system, people know it is a tabloid. the real issue is that many supposed respectable news agencies have been shown to have more than their fair share of misinformation.
  - hedora 7y ago
    Eh; their site is the top hit on Google for “The Daily Mail” I suspect most people searching using Google’s news features want news, not tabloids. Slurping a bunch of searches for news into your tabloid site sounds like an obvious case of “gaming the system”. I didn’t know it was a tabloid until just now, because I’ve never heard of them. I’d have been upset with the news aggregators I use if they accidentally bubbled unreliable sources to the top of my feed. I really don’t understand the controversy.
  - jakelazaroff 7y ago
    > once they decided to get into the game of determining what is and what is not the truth is where they step over the line. Why shouldn't they? If I search for information about the Earth, I don't want to see a bunch of flat Earth crap. If I search for information on vaccines, I don't want to have to sift through anti-vax results, no matter how popular they are. People use Google because they think the results are good. Google's bet is that one reason people for this is that they surface true information. Therefore, they penalize information they assess likely to be false. If users disagree with Google's assessment — i.e. it buries valuable information or surfaces worthless information — they'll use another search engine.
me_me_me 7y ago
I am not conflicted at all, Daily Mail clearly gamed the system in order to inflate their clickrate. System was updated to make it harder to be gamed, inflated clicks are back to what it suppose to be. Maybe instead of trying to sell drama and rage headlines they could focus on actually producing worthwhile content... but then again its Daily Mail. What would be interesting is to see how other papers were affected by this.
- dev_dull 7y ago
  Where do you see it was they were gaming the system? Their site was clearly popular. From what I see they were targeted based on the perception of that content’s value.
  - me_me_me 7y ago
    The gaming part could actually be natural product, not necessarily ill-willed intent. The headline creation and news selection promote clickbait within organization. The most outlandish and catchy stuff gets most revenue, why spend days/week/months on quality article that will be surpassed in terms of ROI by gossip drop? Over time ppl working in Daily Mail would naturally write stuff that trends on google. And I wager that what was trending on google had a good chance to trend amongst their target audience too (stuff that triggers emotional responses).
kazinator 7y ago
It's impossible not to avoid "limiting the reach" somehow because a search engine cannot simply deliver to the user the list of all pages that it has crawled which contain the search words, in an arbitrary order. Google is just responding to what people want; the search engine has taken a lot of flak over the years for being spammed, and alternatives have been cropping up. Though "to google" has become a household word, Google cannot rest on their laurels and take that entrenchment for granted.
sam0x17 7y ago
Yeah but if they don't do that, sites eventually figure out how to game the system/algorithm and we're back and square one. Google has to constantly make changes to stay ahead of SEO. It's like an arms race.
contravariant 7y ago
Then again, would a truly ideal search engine recommend the Daily mail as a source for information? There's a risk of bias though you're definitely right about that.

daleharvey 7y ago

You think it should be googles duty to promote bad publications by means of the algorithm it generated?

creaghpatr 7y ago
It should be their duty to be transparent about the matter.
- spookthesunset 7y ago
  And how to you propose this be done? Google has to order its results somehow. How do you propose they order them?
tomohawk 7y ago
That is not the issue. There is a claim that Google manually intervened to DEmote the "bad publication". Should that be Google's duty? If so, what is Google's responsibility with regard to transparency and accountability?
- sam0x17 7y ago
  Much more likely that they made some global changes, and dailymail happened to be one of the hardest-hit high profile sites, because the amount of click-baity untrue stuff they publish.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago

Google has to do some sort of curation, or we're left back in the early 2000's where people are just throwing keywords up for the google crawler to find. Is there a difference between those sites and the daily mail? Oh yeah, but I don't know where it sits on the spectrum when compared to those old sites and more reputable news agencies.

dariusj18 7y ago

Except the whole reason Google rose to be the best search engine is because they created a better search. More context awareness and better algorithms to find quality/relevant posts. As the SEO meta game changes, so must they, to stay ahead of those who want to game the system.

Shivetya 7y ago
once they decided to get into the game of determining what is and what is not the truth is where they step over the line. if I search for something I want what is popular to come up, not was is approved. daily mail isn't gaming the system, people know it is a tabloid. the real issue is that many supposed respectable news agencies have been shown to have more than their fair share of misinformation.
- hedora 7y ago
  Eh; their site is the top hit on Google for “The Daily Mail” I suspect most people searching using Google’s news features want news, not tabloids. Slurping a bunch of searches for news into your tabloid site sounds like an obvious case of “gaming the system”. I didn’t know it was a tabloid until just now, because I’ve never heard of them. I’d have been upset with the news aggregators I use if they accidentally bubbled unreliable sources to the top of my feed. I really don’t understand the controversy.
- jakelazaroff 7y ago
  > once they decided to get into the game of determining what is and what is not the truth is where they step over the line. Why shouldn't they? If I search for information about the Earth, I don't want to see a bunch of flat Earth crap. If I search for information on vaccines, I don't want to have to sift through anti-vax results, no matter how popular they are. People use Google because they think the results are good. Google's bet is that one reason people for this is that they surface true information. Therefore, they penalize information they assess likely to be false. If users disagree with Google's assessment — i.e. it buries valuable information or surfaces worthless information — they'll use another search engine.

me_me_me 7y ago

I am not conflicted at all, Daily Mail clearly gamed the system in order to inflate their clickrate. System was updated to make it harder to be gamed, inflated clicks are back to what it suppose to be. Maybe instead of trying to sell drama and rage headlines they could focus on actually producing worthwhile content... but then again its Daily Mail. What would be interesting is to see how other papers were affected by this.

dev_dull 7y ago
Where do you see it was they were gaming the system? Their site was clearly popular. From what I see they were targeted based on the perception of that content’s value.
- me_me_me 7y ago
  The gaming part could actually be natural product, not necessarily ill-willed intent. The headline creation and news selection promote clickbait within organization. The most outlandish and catchy stuff gets most revenue, why spend days/week/months on quality article that will be surpassed in terms of ROI by gossip drop? Over time ppl working in Daily Mail would naturally write stuff that trends on google. And I wager that what was trending on google had a good chance to trend amongst their target audience too (stuff that triggers emotional responses).

kazinator 7y ago

It's impossible not to avoid "limiting the reach" somehow because a search engine cannot simply deliver to the user the list of all pages that it has crawled which contain the search words, in an arbitrary order. Google is just responding to what people want; the search engine has taken a lot of flak over the years for being spammed, and alternatives have been cropping up. Though "to google" has become a household word, Google cannot rest on their laurels and take that entrenchment for granted.

sam0x17 7y ago

Yeah but if they don't do that, sites eventually figure out how to game the system/algorithm and we're back and square one. Google has to constantly make changes to stay ahead of SEO. It's like an arms race.

contravariant 7y ago

Then again, would a truly ideal search engine recommend the Daily mail as a source for information? There's a risk of bias though you're definitely right about that.