True or False: Does Google Cha-Cha with Search Results?

October 19, 2023

Note: This essay is the work of a real and still-alive dinobaby. No smart software involved, just a dumb humanoid.

Megan Gray is a former Federal Trade Commission employee, former DuckDuckGo executive, and is experienced fighting Google’s legal team. Her background provides key insights into Google’s current antitrust case and how Alphabet Inc. is trying to wring more money from consumers. Gray discusses her case observations in Wired’s article: “How Google Alters Search Queries To Get At Your Wallet.”

Google overhauled its SERP algorithm with “semantic matching” that returned results with synonyms and NLP text phrasing. The overhaul also added more commercial results to entice consumers to buy more stuff. Google’s ten organic links are a lie, because the search engine alters queries to be more shopping oriented. Google works their deviousness like this:

“Say you search for “children’s clothing.” Google converts it, without your knowledge, to a search for “NIKOLAI-brand kidswear,” making a behind-the-scenes substitution of your actual query with a different query that just happens to generate more money for the company, and will generate results you weren’t searching for at all. It’s not possible for you to opt out of the substitution. If you don’t get the results you want, and you try to refine your query, you are wasting your time. This is a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape.”

All these alternations are to raise Google’s ad profit margins. Users and advertisers are harmed but they aren’t aware of it because Google’s manipulations are imperceptible. Google’s search query manipulations are black hat genius because it’s different from the usual Internet scams:

“Most scams follow an elementary bait-and-switch technique, where the scoundrel lures you in with attractive bait and then, at the right time, switches to a different option. But Google “innovated” by reversing the scam, first switching your query, then letting you believe you were getting the best search engine results. This is a magic trick that Google could only pull off after monopolizing the search engine market, giving consumers the false impression that it is incomparably great, only because you’ve grown so accustomed to it. “

This won’t be the end of Google lawsuits nor the end of query manipulation. For now, only Google knows what Google does.

Whitney Grace, October 19, 2023

Written by Stephen E. Arnold · Filed Under Google, Legal matters, News

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Stephen E. Arnold monitors search, content processing, text mining and related topics from his high-tech nerve center in rural Kentucky. He tries to winnow the goose feathers from the giblets. He works with colleagues worldwide to make this Web log useful to those who want to go "beyond search". Contact him at sa [at] arnoldit.com. His Web site with additional information about search is arnoldit.com.