Google Trusts Global Village Idiots More than the US Government
August 4th, 2007 by Michael Gray in GoogleIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
Go ahead just look at this SERP for the [mississippi river]
Google thinks that Wikipedia, which can be edited by any random passer by at any moment with questionable motivation, is a better resource than two government websites, one from the US National Park Service. Think about that for a moment …
Sphere It
August 4th, 2007 at 3:41 am
It is not about what google thinks about wikipedia and US government but which site has a better page rank. It is not thinking, it is an algorythm.
Speaking of this particular case, it is worth thinking why US National Park Service didn’t edited the wikipedia entry.
August 4th, 2007 at 4:59 am
>Google Trusts Global Village Idiots More than the US Government
This got me thinking Mike.
Surely it’s only village idiots who trust the US Government
Anyway for the SERPs you reproduce above, personally I think the Wikipedia entry is far superior to the others for many reasons. Not always the case though, agreed….
- Michael
August 4th, 2007 at 5:12 am
“…is a better resource than two government websites…”
Seems you did not even click the links…
http://biology.usgs.gov/s+t/SNT/noframe/ms137.htm
August 4th, 2007 at 9:51 am
Very naive assumption Manuel, I actually looked at the cached page. Did you?
- Michael
August 4th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
In all honesty, I think the point Graywolf is making refers to the fact that anyone can edit a Wiky entry and not the subjective quality comparison between wiki and the governmental sources.
Hell, I don’t trust any of them, the Government, Wiki, what’s the difference?
August 4th, 2007 at 7:07 pm
Yes, anyone can edit a wiki. Try to make something pointless there. I won’t say that wiki is perfect, cause is not. But it is a lot of work of a whole lot of people. Calling them village idiots is just pointless. Especially if one compare it with US government.
August 4th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
I have to say that I trust the village (idiots) more than the (employees of the) government too!
August 5th, 2007 at 2:19 am
Fully agree, Michael. The emperor feels a distinct blast of air up his backside, but no one in the Googleplex is brave enough to tell him he lost his drawers.
The Google Page Rank algorithm is a smart thing. Code-wise it is very inelegant because it basically revolves around: index, evaluate, index evaluate again, and again, and again, until the errors get below the desired threshold. It works but it works by brute force rather than intelligence.
That side, though, the existing algorithm or even a much improved one can not do it all. You have to give weight to the actual source. Google apparently gives more weight to .edu and .gov links in page rank to begin with … so why do they let sheer weight of numbers override their original good intentions. Wikipedia is like a gigantic landfill. It is the contribution of a huge segment of society and like a real-world landfill you can find treasures … if you cna search long enough through the smell.
August 5th, 2007 at 9:27 am
Mike, you need to get out more. For your first “get out and interact excercise” I have a list of 10 government offices you will visit, with a problem to be resolved, that I shall assign.
The first office you will visit will be the Office of the President of the United States.
Next up: A personal visit to the offices of the New York Motor Vehicles department.
Any idiot can edit Wiki.
Only special idiots can work for the government, usually ones related to someone, ones who did someone a favor and - all of them - about as easy to remove from their government job as it is to remove an arthritic knee and replace it.
August 5th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Any idiot can edit Wikipedia, but it takes a very special well-connected idiot to run the US Government.
August 6th, 2007 at 11:08 am
It’s not just Google - Yahoo! and Live.com both list the Wikipedia entry first. Ask.com puts the .gov sites first but includes the Wikipedia entry in the right sidebar.
Fundamental flaw? Or is the Wikipedia entry really the best resource? It’s anyone’s guess…
August 8th, 2007 at 7:39 am
According to Aaron’s tool, the wiki page has 15 .edu links to that page, the US govt one only 4. What is Goog;e’s algo meant to think?
August 9th, 2007 at 1:21 am
If you take a look at the wikipedia entry and compare it to the gov sites the wikipedia entry really is quite a bit better. The wikipedia entry has 5958 words, and lists 672 links most of which point to information related to the topic; lets say 600 links to more information. The first gov page has 1346 words and 16 links, 4 of which have more information about the river. The last gov page has 769 words, 35 links, 9 of which give more info.
I like my search status firefox extension!
August 17th, 2007 at 10:55 pm
In an ideal world the US site would be ranked higher but unless the “algorythm” incorporates logic as well as page rank we won’t see it.