[TIN FOIL HAT] Google subtly censoring bitcoin search results? + Wired

[blablahblah]

Earlier today, I tried a little experiment: I googled "bitoin". Everything seemed fine at first glance -- Google tried to outsmart me as usual by correcting my spelling, and the first page of results all seemed legit.

However... A 5 month old blog piece (The rise and fall of bitcoin) by some shady outfit calling themselves "Wired" was also there on page 1 (in amongst the standard wikipedia and bitcoin.org results). Whereas I had to click to page 2 before finding "bitcointalk" (page 2 for the '.com.au' locale, and page 3 for my locale).

Feel free to test it for yourself, since I realise that different locales may give different search results. Regardless, it seems awfully suspicious that a single old blog page would get a higher ranking than a current and highly active forum. It makes no sense. I thought Google didn't engage in a "pay for ranking" business model, or has that changed? I'm not out to get Google or Wired or anything like that, I'm just naturally suspicious of authority and possible attempts to cut Bitcoin off from the broader non-Bitcoin community.

Has anyone else experienced possible examples of subtle censorship in their Bitcoin adventures?

[i_rape_bitcoins]

Ever heard of 'personalized search'?

[blablahblah]

Ever heard of 'personalized search'?

I regularly delete my browser's cookies, and it doesn't accept 3rd party cookies or Adobe cookies. Even if (or especially if) they track my IP and have a bunch of other tricks up their sleeve, then I would assume the bitcointalk link should be right up there on page one because I've been using this site a lot lately. Whereas I had never even heard of Wired until the discussion in another thread about a leaked FBI document.

Not suspicious at all. Older sites get higher rank due to age and because more people are likely to be linking to an older article than to something new. Then there is the ranking of the site itself, Wired is a popular site with a high rank.

Source: over 9 years experience at SEO

Rank based on... what other criteria? This site has been around for a lot longer than 5 months.

[Serge]

it's a conspiracy!

[rebuilder]

Wired is a pretty heavy hitter, it's no surprise Google's algorithms rank them high on the relevancy scale.

[i_rape_bitcoins]

Ever heard of 'personalized search'?

I regularly delete my browser's cookies, and it doesn't accept 3rd party cookies or Adobe cookies. Even if (or especially if) they track my IP and have a bunch of other tricks up their sleeve, then I would assume the bitcointalk link should be right up there on page one because I've been using this site a lot lately. Whereas I had never even heard of Wired until the discussion in another thread about a leaked FBI document.

Not suspicious at all. Older sites get higher rank due to age and because more people are likely to be linking to an older article than to something new. Then there is the ranking of the site itself, Wired is a popular site with a high rank.

Source: over 9 years experience at SEO

Rank based on... what other criteria? This site has been around for a lot longer than 5 months.

Wired has a higher page rank than this forum. Therefore their results will show up above those of this forum.

You must be new to the giant world of SEO. There are tons of factors that search engines take into account when deciding your page rank. It's too big on it's own to explain here. I suggest you look here.

Please, if you want accurate results without personalization, disable cookies or disable personalized search with disconnect.me.

[kokojie]

This is actually due to google's recent "penguin" algorithm update. A lot of junk results rose to the top. Google it.

I have actually switched to Bing.com due to this update.

[REF]

This is actually due to google's recent "penguin" algorithm update. A lot of junk results rose to the top. Google it.

I have actually switched to Bing.com due to this update.

same here. I was so use to google old algorithm. hopefully it will change for the better once they are done, you can still see them tweaking the secret recipe.

[check_status]

Sometimes even Bing results are terrible and I have to use Yahoo depending on what I'm searching for. If I look at the results and believe the first page is shit I switch search engines.

[istar]

Eric Schmidt compliments bitcoin, saying it is "a great idea".
The current executive chairman of Google.[3] From 2001 to 2011, he served as the chief executive of Google.

http://www.freetalklive.com/content/google_says_bitcoin_great_idea

And you have Mike Hearn from google who works with Bitcoin

[Realpra]

Not suspicious at all. Older sites get higher rank due to age and because more people are likely to be linking to an older article than to something new. Then there is the ranking of the site itself, Wired is a popular site with a high rank.

Source: over 9 years experience at SEO

My friend is into SEO and I know a little too - everything in that quote is correct.

(Doubt google would bother with BTC when they will not bother with China!)

[blablahblah]

Not suspicious at all. Older sites get higher rank due to age and because more people are likely to be linking to an older article than to something new. Then there is the ranking of the site itself, Wired is a popular site with a high rank.

Source: over 9 years experience at SEO

My friend is into SEO and I know a little too - everything in that quote is correct.

(Doubt google would bother with BTC when they will not bother with China!)

The thing is, Google keeps it's ranking recipe secret to make it harder for sites to game the system. Everybody seems to be assuming that because Wired is very popular, its ranking must therefore be legitimate. There are some unanswered questions:

1) Apart from the age of the link and pre-existing popularity, why would the "The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin" article rank higher than this site? After all, Google themselves recommend focussing on creating quality content, and that article is clearly a load of propaganda.

2) By now, Google has surely come across "king-maker" problems. If a site somehow finds itself at the top of the results, it can cause that site to become much more popular. How does everyone know that Wired was already legitimately popular before Google started giving them high results?

[ymgve]

Are you for real?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wired_(magazine)

Wired started as a paper magazine in NINETEEN NINETY THREE - more than five years before Google ever existed. It is the largest tech-focused mag around, and should be known by everyone who are the slightest interested in technology, both inside the US and outside.

What are you, 13 years old? If you don't recognize Wired, you have no business judging the validity of Google's search results.

[Serge]

1) Apart from the age of the link and pre-existing popularity, why would the "The Rise and Fall of Bitcoin" article rank higher than this site? After all, Google themselves recommend focussing on creating quality content, and that article is clearly a load of propaganda.

Although google's algo is complex, main characteristic is that each page (url) is weighted individually, you cannot compare single page in popularity with a whole site, it simply doesn't work that way.
The basic and the most common principle on which google assigns position to a particular resource (url) on a given search term over another are _inbound links_ (other resources linking to that url) in a relative context.

I'm pretty sure wired's article has been quoted and linked to by many other authoritative (popular) resources which provides even greater linking power (think of site that is linking to a page, sharing it's own page rank). On the other hand the forum used to be on bitcoin.org domain, although it's the most popular place to go to for bitcoin discussions I'd bet that not so many link directly to bitcointalk.org domain but rather to individual posts, in a way spreading page rank thin across many posts.

Another thing to consider when Google does its updates there are times when established positions change their rankings for some time, I've seen reports where people said their sites dropped in ranking for a week, two or more then came back to where they were.

For google whether something is propaganda or not doesn't really matter, their goal is to weight resources in relative popularity in context of any given search term.
If google was even a bit biased in assigning ranks to resources I suspect piracy sites would get no love from google