Google Propping Up Yahoo In Search Results?

c170 writes: "The position of results that point to Yahoo's pages have changed since Google and Yahoo inked their alliance." Definitely an interesting article, but not really enough statistics to prove anything ... still, definitely enough to keep your eyes peeled in the future.

Re:Oh God NO!!!

The problem is not the making of an alliance.
The problem is that they appear to be doing what many companies do. They have realised that they can make profit easier by decreasing quality.
An alliance is one thing. However compromising the quality of a service in the process means that the community of people who use it suffers.
The community thus has a RIGHT to know that this is going on, so that they can make an informed decision on whether or not to continue the use of that service.

How do you figure you have a right to anything from Google? Did you pay them? Can you point me to any written proof of such a right?

Claiming a right to a free service is absurd. Google is and remains an excellent, free, service. If it stops being free, or the quality starts to suffer -- stop using it!

I'm sure you have plenty of rights being abused that would better deserve your attention. Think about it.

Re:wouldn't be suprised

First of all, has anyone contacted Google about this before complaining?

Second, isn't it possible that Google is only now starting to index pages inside Yahoo that link to their directory? Previously they could have been excluded due to a robots.txt file.
--
Mike Mangino
Sr. Software Engineer, SubmitOrder.com

Re:Out of curiosity..

I'll see your HTML and raise you some javascript :) Here's how to convert Netscape's "Search" button into a dialog front-end for google. Simply place this line in your ~/.netscape/preferences.js file:

config("internal_url.net_search.url", "javascript:{void(term=prompt('Searchword:',''))}i f(term)location.href='http://www.google. com/search?q='+escape(term)+'&num=100&sa=Google+Se arch'");

usenet search - (offtopic?)

I would like to see Google get into Usenet search business. I used Deja.com, but now it is a commercially bloated crap site.

With Google's extraordinary ability to sort pages, it would be an ideal move.

LinuxLover

Consider the source

Whenever we see results like this, we always should consider the source. Was the study done by an independent organization? Who funded the results? Was there some motive behind the study?

If you look, you will notice that the linked page is written by the people who aren't listed as high anymore. It seems fairly clear to me that they are merely bitching about not being listed as high on google, and I find it somewhat specious that google is telling their indexing software to rank Yahoo higher.

Futhermore, this could be the result of other changes designed to bring out more relevant results. For example, if they give linked-to pages a higher ability to assign relevancy (i.e. getting linked to by Yahoo gives your page a much better relevancy rating that getting linked to by my roommate) then obviously Yahoo's own pages (which are thouroughly linked by yahoo) will have a high relevancy.

Re:Did anybody even read the article?

There are two real possible ways to look at what happened here. Either Google put in special clauses in their code to bump up Yahoo's stats, or Yahoo adapted to the new technology to increase its scores in the search engine's data.

It would be quite simple for them to adjust their code in order to give Yahoo a leg up. All they would have to do is put in a simple if statement that would basically say "if(siteis(yahoo)) score++;" This isn't necessarily what happened, but it is quite possible.

On the other side, you must also remember that Yahoo basically is a site of lists. This is what they do, and they probably do it rather well since they've been doing it for so long -- I must admit that I don't use them all that often. When they looked at the Google data, they were probably able to update their lists to become more usefull, thus people started linking to them again, giving them more hits, they move up in the Google ratings... and this cycle continues ad infinitum.

Personally, i would say that the second case is probably the most likely one. Since they were looking for different search engine technology they were probably looking at Google and what it spat back, they then used that to stock up their lists to be better and then we have that funny little cycle I noted above. Overall, I would say there is absolutely nothing to worry about, Google isn't bumping up Yahoo's stats, Yahoo is looking at how Google works and is using the data to increase their sites value.

Did anybody even read the article?

I realize its eleet and all to be in the first couple dozen posters but its obvious that nobody up to this point has even read the damned article.

The article is saying, and seems to show some evidence, that since Yahoo partnered with Google that the way Google ranks things has silently changed.

Previously ranking was done based on how often a particular site was linked to, which is why google was so powerful compared to most other search engines. It was great for finding lists of pointers in specialized areas since good lists of links (i.e. a web gloss on a particular subject) would often be linked to.

Since then lists-of-links that were previously in the top 10 can't even be found in the first 500 links. Instead Yahoo comes up more often.

This isn't necessarily a conspiracy between Google and Yahoo, there is a possibility that so many people link to Yahoo that it skews the results that way. The other possibility is that the results are skewed due to the relationship between the two companies. That's what the article is about, not that Yahoo is using Google for a search engine.

Not a problem...

For people who have actually read the article... it seems to me that what's going on here is that Google merged its database with Yahoo's, and naturally, everyone that uses Yahoo as a major resource will have links into Yahoo in their pages, and so Google's rankings have been shifted, not by 'conscious policy' but by a change in the contents of the database.
Yahoo's rise will stop when all the newly added directories have been fully spidered and statted and cross-ranked, and it'll probably fall as Google's database grows with non-Yahoo-database links being added.
Not that I have direct access to Google's database or algorithm, but, this seems more likely than a covert ranking-adjustment plan within Google.

--Parity

Re:Consider the source

If you look, you will notice that the linked page is written by the people who aren't listed as high anymore.

Doesn't seem that way to me. These guys are from Hardin MD [uiowa.edu]. The directory in the graph and mentioned most often in the text is MedWebPlus. The only time the mention themselves [uiowa.edu] it is to say:

While the Hardin MD pages kept about the same average (10th)...

I don't think you can accuse them of crying over their "google ranking." It seems that they are just presenting what they have seen.

Re:Google and epinions?

Yes, it happens to me too: once a couple of months ago I was trying to find the official site for a particular type of ski, and like 80 hits out of 100 where to the fscking epinions pages.

I was thinking as well about epinions poisoning google, but who knows. Anyways think about this, if they made their urls fairly random, *and* had a lot of pages, *and* every one of those pages had links to the main epinions page and the main page had some dynamic link that sent you back to the other page, this might influence google's rating of the page itself.

OTOH this line of reasoning might just be a byproduct of my overworked little mind ;)

Re:Did anybody even read the article?

That couldn't happen though... On one of google's pages [google.com] that explains how it works, it says this:

• Google's complex, automated search methods preclude human interference. Unlike other search engines, Google is structured so no one can purchase a higher PageRank or commercially alter results. A Google search is an honest and objective way to find high-quality websites, easily.

See? Google said they wouldn't, so it couldn't have happened.
--

Slashdot's Alarmism

If David Letterman were to do a "Top 10 Geeks Signs Hell Is Freezing Over," he'd probably need only to look at the /. headlines.

"OMG, Compaq may be violating GPL!!! Someone ask /.!"

"Run for the hills! Google is pimping Yahoo!"

"A private company decided not to publish DeCSS -- it's the end of free speech as we know it!"

"*Red Alert* Corporations try to make money *Red Alert*"

yahoo users affect google (Duh!)

Once Yahoo links to Google:
Yahoo users significantly increase their use of Google, and submit URLs. These URLs will be Yahoo biased, because after all, these are Yahoo users. This bias changes Google's ratings, without any other intervention.

Hell, Google was probably good largely because it was popular with geeks. Like the Net at large, it will become diluted by pr0n surfers & greed. I hope Google and Yahoo both are looking at other methods of automatic category building, since there are lots of interesting approaches to that problem.

Re:Oh God NO!!!

The problem is not the making of an alliance.

The problem is that they appear to be doing what many companies do. They have realised that they can make profit easier by decreasing quality.

An alliance is one thing. However compromising the quality of a service in the process means that the community of people who use it suffers.

The community thus has a RIGHT to know that this is going on, so that they can make an informed decision on whether or not to continue the use of that service.

Such a story is wholly apropriate. Google should be contacted and asked if this was done purposfully or is coincidental, caused by some other tweak in its engine, or in yahoos pages.

--Steve

Google and epinions?

Recently I've noticed a huge increase in the number of times that epinions.com shows up in my searches. I am suspicious because a) the increase was large enough to be obvious to me and b) the links all point to the Epinions home page, not individual pages that might actually be relevant to my search. It sounds just like the same old tactics that Google was supposed to be above. Has anyone else noticed something like this, or shall I lay off the hash?

Herbie J.

Actually, it'd be far more like this...

No, no, you've got it all wrong. Though we are an alarmist crowd, the things you've described are business as usual.

The Top 10 Geek Signs Hell Was Freezing Over would go like this:

• Compaq GPLs own hardware/software! Encourages Microsoft to do the same for totally open Wintel!
• Google Vows to Never-Ever-Cross-Their-Heart-And-Hope-To-Die Sell Search Results for Money No Matter What, For Real! Gives all profits to EFF!
• MPAA Decides To Publish DeCSS Itself, says lawsuit was "one whole joojooflop situation!"
• Pharmaceutical Companies release New Cancer Cures and Other Drugs into public domain after only 3 years! HMO's follow Dr.'s Orders!
• Patent Office hires RMS as Software Intellectual Property Specialist!
• Lara Croft is Actually Real! Loves to date hardcore PERL programmers!
• Microsoft makes its products totally compatible with standards; vows to stop changing MS Office document formats!
• Senator Hatch Revokes DCMA! Starts His Own Digital Music Distribution Company!
• Slashdot posters cease using ubiquitous exclamation points after days away from Unix Shell!
• Larry Wall Elected President of United States.... (OK, it's anticlimactic, but really, can you think of anything better?)

Re:Out of curiosity..

Even better -- use this in your personal bookmark toolbar. Add a new bookmark, and then use this as the URL:

javascript:q=document.getSelection();if(!q){void(q =prompt('Enter text to search using Google.',''))};if(q)location.href='http://www.goog le.com/search?client=googlet&q='+escape( q)

Now, if you highlight some text on a web page and hit the bookmark button, it takes you to Google and executes the search. If no text is highlighted, it brings up a dialog box and asks for the keywords.

Very useful. I use it all the time.

The Easy Answer To This Question

First of all Google does not rank SOLELY based on links to a page, they use a combination of the number of links to the page, the text on the page, its position, etc just like every other search engine. They also use the number of links from the page, and the text for 50 or so characters on either side of a link that links to the page. Its a wonderfully complex set of formulas that are being used to determine relevancy. While I have read the early papers on the methodology that Google is employing (from when it was a Academic project) it has obviously undergone a lot of improvements and refinements over time. They do not release the ranking criteria they are using to the general public (this is normal for Search Engine companies, who guard their criteria closely, and periodically change them without notice).

What seems most likely to me, is simply that Since Google has partnered with Yahoo, they have shared details on their ranking system or have assisted Yahoo staff in positioning the ranking of Yahoo pages in the Google database. As a result, the ranking position of Yahoo pages is on the rise simply because they have some inside information or help. That is why the pages have risen slowly over time, rather than simply popping to the top of the charts, as they might if Google had simply rewritten their formulas to make an exception when a Yahoo page is concerned.

With the work that has gone into creating Google, I do not think they would want to do any screwing around with their formulas that would result in major changes like people are suggesting here. They can help their partners rank better though.

hey there sonny...

... back in my day, we didn't have any http search tools. I had to walk twelve miles, buck naked, in the snow to find a terminal with access to an archie client, and we didn't have no graphics neither! we had to read binary code to interpret our results, if we even got any over out 110 baud connection! and sometimes the results would be in swahili, and we didn't know what to make of what we downloaded, but we were happy! not whining snot nosed little brats like yourselves, who are mad because you can't find that naked picture of Britney Spears or haven't broken 88TB of mp3s downloaded, so stop sniveling!