BFD

It actually seems perfectly natural to me...

And indeed, it is the way I would like it to work. If I look up an address in the Google search box, it is most likely because I actually want to look it up on Gmaps, but I am too lazy to get to the Gmaps page.

bing

"Bing showed remarkable restraint in shilling its own services"

erm, I think Bing is just incapable of returning useful results. You can type the name of a site without the www in the front and it won't return it as a result.

Google promotes Goole?

Shockers!

MS says that F/OSS systems cost more than MS ones?

Horrors!

Yahoo ranks Yahoo higher?

Oh woes!

Business analyst discovers water is wet?

Calamities!

Is it really any surprise that Google promote their own wares? I mean, is it? All companies do this, it should come as no surprise to anyone. Maybe Google will claim that their sites are in some way "better" and so deserve higher ranks. "Better" meaning "easing for our algorithms to deal with".

That shouldn't be a stunner either. Their engineers know the algorithms, so it's a simple matter of massaging the site to match the algorithm. It amounts to the same thing, but does allow Google to state that their algorithms (not sites) are not biased.

Now if you will excuse me, I must investigate ursine religious demographics and arboreal papal defecation.

Surprising Results

Not.

If you hold the keys to all the doors, what else can be expected?

I recently did my own little study on this...

Having read a similar story elsewhere, I researched this myself. I noted that if you search for something specific, like "map" in Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Guess what? The first search result in each one is their own maps. A search for almost anything else is rewarded with each site giving their own version first place. Something I'd like to point out, though, is that while searching for, say, "CSCO", results in a graph of said stock, only Google gives direct links to other sites. Bing and Yahoo leave other sites to the links in the actual search below.

Is Google really doing so little evil today that something like this is big news?

Re: that guy

"Naturally the immediate response is "why should Google not promote their own products over others"

Well, why shouldn't Microsoft only allow you to install IE, and then have IE block everything *but* Bing? Or heck, Why shouldn't Comcast block out all competing sites? I mean, it is their network right?

Better yet, why should your government allow you to know about anything happening in say the middle east. After all you are an American right?

No? Well screw you then! Should've been born in the land of the free.

I liked this story better when it was called

"Google accused of hard-coding own links in search"

Reported by The Register on 11/15/2010.

C'mon Reg.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmm

Well I'm sure I'm not the first to experiment, but sure enough, a search on Google for "mail" does indeed return Gmail as the first result.

BUT... try doing a search for "free e-mail". I get two paid ads at the top, one for GMX and one for Microsoft's Live.com mail (akla Hotmail). Then the search results return, in order:

- Hotmail

- GMX

- Mail.com

- Yahoo

and several other links... In fact NO GOOGLE/GMAIL AT ALL on the first page of links, including no "paid" ads to Google mail!!! So on the basis of my completely unscientific analysis, I conclude that if the Google algorithms are fixed, they're fixed in a pretty lousy way. But then that wouldn't make much of a story would it....???

Non-exclusive

"A noted Google-watcher has assembled a convincing argument that the site's search results highly favor Google-owned services, despite repeated company claims that they are algorithmically generated and never manipulated."

"Algorithmic" and "unbiased" are not mutually exclusive. They are not even based on the same measurement. "Algorithmic" simply means an internally consistent (generally automated) process is involved. It says absolutely nothing of the validity or impartiality of that process. So far as I can tell, there is no discussion here, because the two sides are talking about completely different things.

The argument about click-through rates is poorly thought out as well, as that is certainly not the only (possibly not even the first) metric by which potential results should be judged. Furthermore, the click-through rates quoted by the researchers do not reflect the search engines' click-through rates, but those supplied by third parties. Based on the information in the report, the researchers simply assumed that the click-through data was appropriate and relevant to the search engines' algorithms. However, without further evidence, an equally valid conclusion is that the third-party data does not accurately reflect the search engines' internal data -- and given that the third-party data is by definition specific subsets of search engine data, the potential for bias in them is strong.

In short, search engines are black boxes, the companies that run them intentionally keep them that way, and as long as they remain that way, research like this only reflects guesses that may or may not reflect reality. The guesses may seem intelligent and logical, but without the core search engine data, they are inherently unverifiable.

Are we forgetting something?

It's a search engine, not an OS, not a piece of physical hardware which would take considerable time to either remove or configure. The competition is a but a click away.

What's more, Google is not receiving any money to list a website as part of their general results. It's an indexing service - it's free. I don't recall people suing BT because their phone number doesn't appear on page 1 of the phone book. The algorithm is for users to find what they're looking for faster, not for companies to game in order to pick off the least savvy consumers who simply click on the first result.

The day Google force manufacturers to make their search engine the only search engine on my computers, make me sign some kind of upfront EULA to use their search and prevent my browser from accessing other search engines - then I'll support a competition enquiry. But this is up there with suing McDonalds for getting fat.

I've started using Blekko for half my search results as Google's gone a bit crap recently. I don't think governments or newspaper tycoons quite get the nature of the web. In a matter of weeks people can switch from using one service to another turning from a popular community to a barren wasteland - destroying both profits and shareholders dreams in the process.

What's the use of prosecuting a popular website today if it could be gone by tomorrow before the investigation even gets off the ground?

What a delightfully interpretable phrase:

"search results are ranked in a way that provides users with the most useful answer"

here "most useful" means:

i) to the user, we have scientific analysis to demonstrate relative usefulness.

ii) to the user, we have confidence in our products, we know are services are the best, so they go at the top.

iii) to us, whatever benefits the company.

Take your pick.

'three times more often than other search engines'

So maybe the other three got their algorithms wrong?

In any event, Google makes no charges for this search function, so I have no problems with any bias - real or imagined.

If it was a paid service things would be different.

mail”, “email”, “maps”, or “video

No offence to the guy running the "test", but what would you expect to come back when you search for any of these 4 terms?

Email

Maps

Video

If you did NOT find the Google offerings at the top you would be surprised.

Maybe Microsoft should make a decent alternative and then see how things change.

(well they may not change, but still Googles apps are far far better so who cares if the results are biased)