I’ve often chided google for trusting wikipedia so much when Wikipedia says we don’t care about accuracy or truth, just verifiability. It now looks like they’ve taken it a step further and pitched truth out the window with the dodgeball development team. Here’s a screen shot from Sunday afternoon where according to the Google SERP’s Paul Newman died in a plane crash … way to go big G …
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LOL. That isn’t new. The problem is, Google can’t solve that issue. How would you proposae they filter for “truth”.
Mr. Wolf – did you check Mahalo? Because that’s the best place for truth!
@Chris McElroy aka NameCritic: stop trusting sites like wikipedia and digg would be a good place to start …
@Tom Jones: looks to me like mahalo got it right even though it as a bit spartan
http://www.mahalo.com/Paul_Newman_Dead
For a topical query like this they should filter all digg results if they are years old like this one.
I think I could agree that Digg has no place in a specific News SERP, unless they consider unsupported claims followed by immature comment threads “news”. That’s a no-brainer it would seem, but Chris McElroy does raise a point that Google can’t actually filter for truth. I mean you could find plenty of examples of where a lot of the so called “trusted” news sources are rife with bullshit and bias as well. I think, though, that your screenshot does show that you do have a weapon to deal with your own personal concerns. You have a filter link by the result you find to not be quality. That, to me, seems like a pretty fair approach to dealing with the logistical complications of “filtering for truth”.
This is similar to when a Google News search of an old Chicago Trib story from 2002 that appeared on Bloomberg’s news wire said that United was going to file bankruptcy and their stock went down by 75 percent. Bad Google searches can cause harm, too. (See http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10036131-93.html)
Michael,
Thanks for screenshot as it proves I hit #1 for the query.
On a more on-topic note, couldn’t Google easily see when the Digg link was added to their index? Then filter by index date versus event date? Surely they saw the spike in queries for obit related content. Knowing about a death 2 years in advance (the Digg result) is obviously impossible.
Perhaps I over simplify. There are smart people over there that I’m sure are watching things like this.
@Brent D. Payne: well google continues to list the rubella page of wikipedia #1 for the result, and the page states that
“the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced that both the congenital and acquired forms of rubella had been eliminated from the United States”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubella
which is incorrect
http://www.crunchgear.com/2007/10/02/cali-lewis-reviews-signal-for-itunes/
yay google for ranking completely incorrect health information to the general public. I’ve been using this an example for years, and wikipedia and google refuse to do anything about it, misinformation and truthiness FTW
Who is Google (or any search engine for that matter) to decide what the truth is? Should they remove the 9/11 conspiracy pages, or do you think those tell the truth?
Search engines seek information, not necessarily the truth, and I like them that way. Blindly relying on search results has always been a bad thing.
I have to agree somewhat with MenthiX. People used to believe everything they heard on radio… then TV… then Fax… then Email… Now search?
While I would love the first result of every search to answer my question perfectly I doubt that will ever be the case. It is up to us to make sure that when searching that we weed the fiction from fact.
I guess it’s really as simple as don’t believe everything you read.
I do Not want to be critical, but you don’t search for news stories in the Web Index. Google has a special News search for a reason. And, your image above just found out why.
As long as Google believes SERP rankings are a popularity contest we will get results like this. Throughout history it has been demonstrated that the wisdom of the crowd sways the masses, but that “wisdom” is usually wrong.
@John H. Gohde: so you dont think with the firefox awesome bar and google chrome single bar users are being trained to just type in their query and not bother with selecting different types of searches? You dont see how that could be a problem?
It could be a problem, but does that mean it’s exactly Google’s problem? I mean, if users are being lazy and not even bothering to click either the more News search for more angles on the story to clarify or even the article itself to see the headline in context, and then running off thinking that the guy died in a plane crash… Well, stupid is as stupid does. Misleading headlines is status quo for “respected trusted” media since forever, if someone hasn’t learned to read past the large type by this point they are doomed to live a life uninformed regardless of whether they use Google or the paper delivered to their doorstep.
@Terry Howard: well how many “stupid” people were led astray by the united airlines bankruptcy news story?
With great power comes great responsibility … Google is way more concerned about the first and not so much about the last
Searches don’t work by magic. You get returned in Google exactly what you specify. I have no problems whatsoever running a news search from Google’s Toolbar. To get valid results from a General Web Search all you have to do is add 2008 to the search string. Simply amazing how easy it is to get good results from Google.
As long as Google is in a position of power they have an absolute responsibility to provide the most relevant and accurate results.
The notion that social bookmarking, link popularity, etc. should be major factors in determining accuracy and truthfulness is a fatal flaw in my opinion.
@John Gohde @Terry Howard @MenthiX:
So when you were a kid and looked up a topic in the Encyclopedia Britannica was it your responsibility to decide which one of every 2nd page you read was complete BS?
No, Encyclopedia Britannica took responsibility for their actions and thoroughly vetted the information before publishing such an important piece of work. To rank Wikipedia #1 on almost every SERP – when it contains absolute garbage – is just ridiculous.
The articles that some people seem to be complaining about, were perfectly valid news stories when they were published.
Google is not your mommy constantly telling her children what they want to see and read. You have to tell Google precisely what you want to see and read, or continue to live on Pablum forever.
Yes, we’re telling Google we want to see truth and accuracy.
You are all going to hate on me for saying this but here it goes.
What you have done is produce a theory from unfounded information. You do not understand what has happened here and you did not look into it enough either.
It’s OK I have done this too. But if I can, let me point out your mistakes in thinking this through.
#1 Since the post is from 10-12-2007 it has accrued pagerank over time, hence it will outrank other pages.
The Digg post is a PageRank 0 page, all the others are news items, since they are only a day or so old they have a greyed out page rank.
#2 Next, you mention it has only 7 links. At the time you published your blog post the news articles were only hours old so they had NO links.
7 links is more than 0 links.
You also have to take into account the quality of the links, not all links are created equal.
#3 The news articles are few hours old and may have 100s of links but none of those pages have any incoming links or any PageRank either since no one has linked to them.
It is also important to note that PageRank has nothing to do with the rankings you will receive in Google results. It is however a visual indicator of a documents quality, it’s incoming link’s quality and it’s power to rank well in the search engines.
#4 You are comparing apples to oranges here, you are in Websearch, if you want news, go to Blogsearch. It is ranked there at #2 as well, but you can’t win ‘em all.
#5 In social media terms, every one of the people who Dugg the article are incoming links too. The article has 15 comments. In social media terms that is a link too. So if we add all this up then the article really has 36 links. Many of those who Dugg this are my friends on Digg and have powerful profiles.
I know you SEO guys are going to tell me I am full of crap. Do so if it makes you feel better then go buy some current information because this has been the case for years. Don’t think so call Charles Heflin or Jeff Smith, they will vouch for me and my information.
Hope this clarifies why this link is here. Search engine results are not always fair.
If they were you and I would always be top ten under every keyword.
Cheers – Chris Lang
One last point: News articles will jump from Blogsearch to Websearch, sometimes very quickly, but they don’t get any incoming links they will not show up in Websearch if the term is already populated. If it is a previously indexed term, then you will see results like these.
I agree with you, many articles from 2006 outrank me in Google results. Even though my articles on social bookmarking are leading edge and completely tested before I start rolling out theories.
The fact of the matter here is the term was already indexed due to a hoax, hence the Digg item was already indexed long before the other. Why would you all think a brand new article would outrank an established one in Websearch. It is important that we say Websearch here, not Blogsearch.
If it had not already been indexed it would not have had a chance of showing up here.
I don’t dispute your SEO facts regarding how/why Google provided these results.
But, you’re missing the point. If that’s the best Google can do as far as providing accurate results, then the engine isn’t worth 5 cents in my opinion.
I wonder how I would improve the search engine to show more truth and accuracy? Aaha – I wouldn’t show Wikipedia as #1 result all the time!
Interesting how this is such a volatile topic.
… or provide any importance to Digg pages, social media crap, or maybe even regular links for that matter.
No one dares to think that Brin and the other 200 PHD’s at Google might be wrong, but show me scientific research that correlates popularity with accuracy.
Sure, popularity probably provides some relevancy according to the idiot down the block, but if that’s 80% of the logic then they have a big problem.
“Stange things are afoot at Google, Ted!” Ok, Bill S. Preston, esq. never said this, but if “Bill & Ted” were to do their movies today… perhaps he would have.
Oh-kayyy, here goes…
It appears to me that Michael Gray was in Web search and the Digg article is still there at number 3. Even though my web search screen shows “Web”, “News” and “Blogs” (not just “Web” and “News”) – the screen shot looks similar to what is on my browser screen. If I click on “News” then I see “News Results” in the blue bar, if I click on News on the initial google screen that I get – then it takes me to the Google News Beta pages, which looks totally different.
Unlike what Chris Lang offers, “If I want to do a general search, I will search Web search; if I want News, then I will go to Google News. On the other hand, if I want opinion — I will go to Blog Search.”
Many here, including Graywolf, talk about truth and accuracy? Tell me, why is the Digg entry an untruth and/or inaccurate? Now before you answer, frame your response in the content of “Web search” and not “News” or “Current News” for this is important. Why is it important? I’ll tell you.
Web search searches millions of sites (including news sites, blogs, social sites, websites, etc.). It indexes these sites it finds and post these findings into a list of results according to it’s ranking that Google assigns. Keep in mind by my use of the word “Ranking”, I am not necessarily saying Google indexes by Page Rank. Google seems to rank by the number of links a result has, and it seems that the length of time the item has been around play a part – as well as relevancy to the keywords used.
I’ve noted on many occasions in the past that Google seemed to pull a result out of nowhere. Upon investigating it, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason for that particular entry to pop up, however a more extensive search (or a person with more knowledge or experience) might find a valid reason why these “anomalies” seem to occur. On the other hand it might simply be “the nature of the beast”, Google (and other search engines) may simply throw these errors at times because of one reason or another… hey, even computers are only as perfect as the programmers programming them.
So back to the question, just where is Google being ‘inaccurate’ or ‘false’ about this result? Are people saying that the Digg item is simply not there? Are they saying that Google is saying the Digg article is saying something that it does not? No, as far as I see, people are claiming the item is “Inaccurate” and “False” because the story was a “Hoax” or a bad news report. If the content of the result from Digg is wrong, which it was, then the article itself was wrong in some way.. or was it? If you read the title, it clearly stated “Paul Newman Presumed Dead In Private Plane Crash” (the keyword here is “Presumed”, which means “assume (usually presumed with confidence”). If you click on the article it clearly says “This story is still developing”, which means this is an initial report. At the time of the article, the article was not inaccurate or a falsehood… it was merely reporting what a source (or sources) said. As with many news items one can hear or read about, the initial reports are often ‘in error’ in some way. This is just another one of those “News First” things that run rampant in today’s world. Since the media has no signs of changing the way they give out their stories, we really should learn to wait awhile before believing anything we read or hear until the facts sort themselves out.
I agree with Chris about the Digg article being indexed long before the newer News articles and that gives the Digg article a longer time to have accrued ranking in Google. The Newer articles have to build up their links and back links in order to overtake the Digg article… however I do feel that Google ought to depreciate it’s results by age. This will make older news items, blogs, and any other result found by Google easier to overtake by the newer items found on the net.
firefox with the awesome bar and google chrome with whatever they are calling it are encouraging the behavior of just type your query into the box and we’ll figure it out. More often than not you are given web search as a result. Advanced users may know to go to google news for news, regular people not as much. If google themselves are encouraging the behavior I it think its prudent they have their ducks in a row before sending everyone there.
I’m not saying dont index hoaxes or try and determine truthh, but of all the stories for paul newman dead that was the result that they could come up with … really … and you think thats ok …
So today I’m the first person to declare that Hugo Chavez was the first President of the United States. Since I’m first I have the most time to build authority, and of course everyone in Venezuela will create a link. Definitely worthy of 1st page ranking – yes, in the National Enquirer, but not in the #1 search engine.
@TymB Comparing an Encyclopedia, a publication written by specific professional historians that provides footnotes to references that cite sources to a Google search result is just stupid. As well, asking Google, an indexing and article retrieval tool, to define what is reality (and to subsequently define your world view on it) is even more stupid. Not to be reducing the conversation to name calling, but I think we are all way out of our trees here. Maybe he did die in a plane crash, maybe the other articles are all false. Maybe there is no spoon… Regardless, these are not questions to be answered solely on the authority of an algorithm. Michael, your own brain told you that was probably not a recent and accurate article, therefore problem solved. If you fear for the plight of people who fail to employ the use of their grey matter in conducting their everyday lives, let me save you the trouble, they are doomed.
The comment I made was:
“Tell me, why is the Digg entry an untruth and/or inaccurate? Now before you answer, frame your response in the content of “Web search” and not “News” or “Current News” for this is important.”
I also said:
“Web search searches millions of sites (including news sites, blogs, social sites, websites, etc.). It indexes these sites it finds and post these findings into a list of results according to it’s ranking that Google assigns.”
What I am saying here is that Websearch is more of a “General Search”, it lists the results found from all sorts of sites on the net. It’s not only searching factual sites, but it is also searching opinion sites. The items you get in web search will include “Fact” and “Fiction”, if such terms can be used to cover all bases. It then will display those results.
I see no one really answered my comment/question, especially the one making the claim of:
“If that’s the best Google can do as far as providing accurate results, then the engine isn’t worth 5 cents in my opinion.”
@ Michael: I hate to pour water on your fire, but the search engines always did that and it didn’t matter if you went to a search engine page or utilized a toolbar on some site, browser or homepage. It was always the fact that you typed in your search term(s) and were left at the mercy of the search engine for the results. What is new on that front is that they filter things better, no longer do I get 200 pages of porn sites when I type in the phrase “Virgin Mary”. The search engines are not perfect by any means, but then again how well they perform depends a lot upon what the searcher puts into the little box.
For example, if I type in “Paul Newman Dead” (without he quotes), then I get the Digg article as my third result. Now if I type in “Paul Newman Dead 2008″, I get 20 or more results and the Digg article doesn’t appear amongst them.
You see… by adding the year (or even his age), it weeded out the Digg article. It, at least, weeded it out for the top 20 results. However let’s say that I am lazy and just want to type in Newman Dead.. then surely for my laziness I can’t gripe at the search engine for picking up as many Newman Dead items as it can. Who knows, maybe that Digg article would end up being useful… maybe it would spur a blog post about it that would not have been thought of because I never saw the Digg article if I thought out what I wanted to search for a little better. Interesting thought, I’ll think on that one a bit.
If Google were to make the jump from being a search engine to being a truth engine, how would you propose they go about verifying everything?
And how should they treat opinion, parody, humor, sarcasm, and pages related to things in people’s offline private lives? And what about pages containing literary works that are obviously fictional? How about poetry? And how do you propose they get inside everyone’s heads to verify statements made about how something made someone feel? Product, movie, and other types of reviews?
Google can’t and shouldn’t, nor do they claim that they do, and they don’t claim that they would ever consider becoming a truth engine, rather than a search engine.
As a truth engine, they would fail, since you can’t verify ANYTHING as being 100% factual, and even something that is regarded as fact today can suddenly become false tomorrow. We don’t consider Pluto a planet any more, do we?
If Google made the jump to being a truth engine, all search results would lead to a blank page. Is that what you want? Is that really better?
@Terry Howard:
“Comparing an Encyclopedia, a publication written by specific professional historians … to Google is just stupid.”
“…these are not questions to be answered solely on the authority of an algorithm…”:
I absolutely disagree. You’re stuck in 2004.
Maybe they should pick up a copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica and learn a thing or two. It’s 2008 – time for Google to step up its game and serve real authority, accuracy, and truth.
What’s really stupid is to sit back and accept what they feed you instead of demanding more from the current “go to” reference for the world. In 2004 they did a great job, in 2008 some of us expect more.
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