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Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results

gabrielweinberg.com

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Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results

#2

Post by kevingadd »

Most of the stuff discussed in this post didn't bug me, but then I got to this part:

As the Wall Street Journal confirmed in its own study, Google has been significantly altering its search results to highlight Obama-related results, but not Romney-related results (more on that later).

These Obama-related results are being inserted because obama is a magic keyword on Google. A magic keyword is a search that can transform the Google results of later searches.

Incredibly shady. Changing the results of later searches based on things I searched for in the past is the complete opposite of what I want a search engine to do.

Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results

#3

Post by SoftwareMaven »

I'm trying to decide how concerned I should be about Obama being a magic keyword and Romney not. On the one hand, Obama has been president for nearly four years; the number of searches for him will have been high and consistent. On the other hand, Google is so central to information flow today, having it decide which candidate should get special treatment is disturbing.

I'm mollified somewhat that the Obama magic results that came up when searching for Romney were from Fox News[1], but I still feel a faint disease at the whole concept.

I've been using DDG for several months now and like it. It hasn't matched Google on technical searches, but on general information searches, I prefer the results to be less biases by me.

1. I would personally prefer to never see a link to Fox News. However, if every search for Obama was extolling his virtues and every search for Obama was extolling his virtue, my unease would be outright disgust and I would be contacting my Congressman. My unease comes from not knowing why they might show me something, other than to echo back what I already think, wchich is noot a very useful set of information. I already know that.

Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results

#6

Post by dsr_ »

kevingadd wrote: post #2

Most of the stuff discussed in this post didn't bug me, but then I got to this part: As the Wall Street Journal confirmed in its own study, Google has been significantly altering its search results to highlight Obama-related results, but not Romney-related results (more on that later). These Obama-related results are being inserted because obama is a magic keyword on Google. A magic keyword is a search that can trans…

I wonder if the effect times out? If so, it could be reasonably construed as an attempt to present more relevant results across a session.

If, on the other hand, Google accumulates history until you sink into a morass of similar results, it's clearly harmful.

Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results

#7

Post by [deleted] »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #3

I'm trying to decide how concerned I should be about Obama being a magic keyword and Romney not. On the one hand, Obama has been president for nearly four years; the number of searches for him will have been high and consistent. On the other hand, Google is so central to information flow today, having it decide which candidate should get special treatment is disturbing. I'm mollified somewhat that the Obama magic res…

[deleted]

Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results

#8

Post by jmillikin »

dsr_ wrote: post #6
kevingadd wrote: post #2

Most of the stuff discussed in this post didn't bug me, but then I got to this part: As the Wall Street Journal confirmed in its own study, Google has been significantly altering its search results to highlight Obama-related results, but not Romney-related results (more on that later). These Obama-related results are being inserted because obama is a magic keyword on Google. A magic keyword is a search that can trans…

I wonder if the effect times out? If so, it could be reasonably construed as an attempt to present more relevant results across a session. If, on the other hand, Google accumulates history until you sink into a morass of similar results, it's clearly harmful.

In the original WSJ article (yc: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4741394), it's confirmed that this effect has a limited duration.

  > A Google spokesman said: "We aim to get users the best
  > answers as fast as possible" using techniques such as
  > examining "related searches." He said the goal for the
  > feature is to provide better results in a situation
  > where, for instance, a person who searches for "Harry
  > Potter," and then for "Amazon," actually wants "Harry
  > Potter" results from Amazon.com Inc. He said that the
  > technique saves Google users time and provides better
  > answers, but affects only about 0.3% of the searches the
  > company conducts.

Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results

#9

Post by chmodd »

kevingadd wrote: post #2

Most of the stuff discussed in this post didn't bug me, but then I got to this part: As the Wall Street Journal confirmed in its own study, Google has been significantly altering its search results to highlight Obama-related results, but not Romney-related results (more on that later). These Obama-related results are being inserted because obama is a magic keyword on Google. A magic keyword is a search that can trans…

Here's a nice infographic for this: http://dontbubble.us/

Google has been serving personalized results for a while now, but this is probably first time it attracted such widespread attention from media.

Re: Magic keywords on Google and the consequences of tailoring results

#10

Post by kulkarnic »

I wish Gabriel had inserted a map of where the screenshots were taken. My hunch, which could be wrong, is that magic keywords are geographic too. In a state like NH which leans strongly, maybe the algorithm automatically identified Obama as a magic word. (This hunch is based based simply on ddg being not-quite-mainstream, so maybe its users are more democrat than the country?)

I think it'll be interesting to see the Google response to this. I think the most important question is whether identifying magic keywords happens automatically, or is programmer input involved?

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