SEO Alert: A New Way to Rank Number One on a Google Search Results Output?
March 8, 2020
The search engine optimization crowd may find “Spanish Court: Google Search Must Show Man’s Acquittal First” useful. Those who wonder about Google’s ability to structure search results to put certain citations in a specific place in the results list will find the article suggestive.
The story concerns an individual’s effort to return search results from a Google query that accurately reflected legal facts. I don’t want to go down the rat hole of “legal facts,” “accurately,” or bias in search engines.
I circled this statement in the article:
A [Spanish] National Court decision Friday said that freedom of expression took precedence over personal data protection in this case. However, given the case’s special circumstances, the person’s acquittal must appear in first place in internet searches, it ruled.
Will Google comply? Will the Spanish court be satisfied? Will the person acquitted of a criminal charge become a happy camper?
Several observations:
- The Spanish court does not know or does not care that Google’s search results are objective, determined by a black box algorithm. If manipulated results are displayed, does that question Google’s objectivity?
- If Google can tweak court results to conform, will search engine optimization experts have a new path to influence search results?
- Does the Google system have other search results which create that a fact like an acquittal is effectively buried, thus distorting reality?
DarkCyber does not have answers to these questions. Could this Spanish court order create another crack in the online ad giant’s objective algorithmic system?
Worth monitoring the outcome.
Stephen E Arnold, March 8, 2020
Comments
One Response to “SEO Alert: A New Way to Rank Number One on a Google Search Results Output?”
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Your premise is flawed. What makes you believe Google’s results are objective?
Because they literally aren’t. Do a search in private browsing vs logged in.
That’s not to mention documented cases of exclusion.