[Taltarzac725]

Originally Posted by OrangeBlossomBaby

I think a lot of you just don't understand how google and other search engines actually work. I'll explain in the way my coding teacher explained arrays to me, since it's pretty much the same thing.

Google collects information. Google doesn't judge the information, but it does categorize it. It categorizes it based partly on the source, and partly on whether or not a company is paying for it to show up as a "sponsored" result. If it comes from a news outlet, then it's categorized as news. If it comes from a medical journal or science website, then it's categorized as science. And so on.

Each of these categories exist in a virtual file cabinet, unsorted. The newest bit of information goes in the front, the oldest in the back, but otherwise - it's just a mish-mosh of information.

When someone types in "climate change", Google checks the phrase, and discovers that the phrase matches with a whole lot of things in the "science" file cabinet. So it opens the science file cabinet, and takes out all the "sponsored results" that involve climate change, and puts them at the top of the list. It then goes through the rest of the cabinet seeking references to "climate change" and pulls out the files that match, in order of how many people have MOST RECENTLY checked the files. If most people have been RECENTLY checking the "climate change is a hoax" file from Breitbart news back in 2015, then that file will go on the top of the list immediately beneath the sponsored posts. It'll then open other cabinets to check for files that include the phrase "climate change." It'll toss all related files onto the list under the most recent and sponsored.

When it's done doing all this, it spits the entire list out for readers. Every time a reader clicks on one of those entries, the click is counted and marked as "recent." It's tallied with all the other recent clicks. So if 500,000 people click on a "Climate Change is Real!" file that was written yesterday and posted in the New York Times, and only 300,000 click on the one from Breitbart back in 2015, then the NYT post will replace Breitbart as the #1 post beneath the sponsored posts.

If you scroll over and click to results pages after the first, you'll also find articles from Entertainment Weekly about some celebrity divorce, and how there's been a real "climate change" in their household due to hostilities between the couple and their oldest son.

In short, Google doesn't manipulate what shows up on the top of the search results, OTHER than sponsored results. It ONLY looks for how many people are clicking on the links, and inclusion of the phrase in the correct category.

Edited to add: It does filter out certain things restricted by law - such as vulgarity and porn.

Math and computer programming are quite objective except when you start adding in who clicks on what. That brings in people and their prejudices, fears, hates, loves, etc.