Users are creating the associations, Google is discovering them and presenting them back to other users, and subsequent users are confirming the associations.

Users are creating the associations, Google is discovering them and presenting them back to other users, and subsequent users are confirming the associations. Going down this road of debate, we'll be getting into the semantics of "inventing" vs. "discovering." Turning data into ranking is the whole purpose of a search engine, just as turning data into theory is the purpose of science, and turning experience into art is the purpose of art. Essentially here, we're debating whether search ranking is more like science, in which there's a correct answer that you are uncovering, or like art, in which all of the product is subjective. Having worked in the field for five years, I'd argue that it is far closer to art than science. Google's rankings are its subjective determination, and the courts have agreed that Google's rankings are its constitutionally protected speech. Though the data may all ultimately come from the human-created internet, the transformation of that data is still important, and subjective. To claim otherwise is to miss the whole point of search technology in the first place.