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Google Corrects Andrew Yang & Ramesh Srinivasan On How Search Works

Published

2 years ago

March 10, 2022

Google Corrects Andrew Yang & Ramesh Srinivasan On How Search Works

Danny Sullivan, the Google Search Liaison, responded to Andrew Yang, the businessman, attorney, lobbyist and political candidate and Ramesh Srinivasan, UCLA professor, that they are wrong on how Google Search works. It is actually shocking how wrong Ramesh Srinivasan is and how confident he was when describing it.

Here is the video clip that Andrew Yang, who most of you might recognize from his the 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, interview with Ramesh Srinivasan:

Why and how does Google show different people different search results? Now on https://t.co/PjWTwI77T1 Prof Ramesh Srinivasan @rameshmedia author of “Beyond the Valley” talks social media and democracy in the developing world, data rights, online echo chambers, and more. pic.twitter.com/PfcpOFkHwi
— Andrew Yang🧢⬆️🇺🇸 (@AndrewYang) March 8, 2022

As you can hear, Ramesh saying “so when they [Google] started doing this personalization stuff, what happened is we became googled and we became googled not based on sort of a sort of some sort of neutral notion of relevance but based on what would grab our attention. And the way that works, which I think is really interesting, is it’s all based on correlation. So you know if you Andrew yang have looked at you know a million web pages and I have all this data about your engagement on those different web pages which we call documents in the information sciences and then I have very similar profile to you it will recommend content to me based on correlation mapping.”

He goes on but in short, Google does not personalize results like this. Google has been saying for years and years that what personalization it does do is extremely light and is mostly (a) location based personalization and (b) immediate previous search personalization. So if you are in NYC and search for pizza, Google will show you pizza stores near you. If you first searched for football and then searched for Panthers, Google might show you the football team over the animal. But Google has been saying it doesn’t use personalization in a way that creates filter bubbles.

So Danny Sullivan responded on Twitter to this saying “Our search results at Google are not personalized in the way that’s described. Two people searching for the same thing in the same location will largely see the same results.”

Our search results at Google are not personalized in the way that’s described. Two people searching for the same thing in the same location will largely see the same results. This explains more: https://t.co/dc0Qbjp8JL
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 8, 2022

We don’t have one single algorithm that runs. We’re pretty transparent about general things our systems aim for — our How Search Works site is a good place to start: https://t.co/O65v1PTehr and see especially https://t.co/OfHNBK6oHl
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 8, 2022

There’s also content we share in these places:https://t.co/MPfQyYiDFO https://t.co/msqEFlIykD
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 8, 2022

I’m sorry you found those results from that search in 2017 not useful. But the assumption you made in that article that the results were somehow uniquely tailored to your interests — that’s not how Search results are generated.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) March 8, 2022

Yes, personalization, can mean many different things if we take the term outside of Google’s opaque definition of such. Location, language, etc. are all examples of a different level of personalization from one standpoint. But again the point made in the article stands.
— Ramesh Srinivasan (@rameshmedia) March 8, 2022
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Yes again that is how Google defines personalization but the term has a range of other meanings for the rest of us. I look fwd to hearing from your colleague/s so Google can communicate more clearly with the public on these issues.
— Ramesh Srinivasan (@rameshmedia) March 8, 2022

There was a time in 2007 Google tried personalization in a deeper way but that didn’t last too long and Google discontinued it because they didn’t find it useful for search ranking purposes.

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Related Topics:Andrew Corrects Google Ramesh Search Srinivasan Works Yang

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SEARCHENGINES

Daily Search Forum Recap: April 30, 2024

Published

12 hours ago

May 1, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Microsoft Advertising has officially added Copilot to help advertisers using AI. Tuta complained to regulators over its ranking drop with the Google core update. We saw the same person rank in Google Search with multiple entities. Google renames product sites to product websites. Google Search App has a neat screenshot feature. I am offline today, all these stories were pre-written and scheduled, including this newsletter.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Copilot Now In Microsoft Advertising Platform

Microsoft announced the general availability of Copilot in the Microsoft Advertising Platform. This means you can now use Copilot (Microsoft’s AI) natural language conversational chat, asset recommendations, and image asset creation in the Microsoft Advertising platform.

The Same Person With Multiple Entities In Google Search

Last week, Shameem Adhikarath shared an example of an individual that shows up twice as two different entities in Google Search. It is like maybe Google was fed two distinct entities for the same person and now Google is showing both of them, with the same name and same query.

Tuta Complains To EU Regulators Over Google March 2024 Core Update Ranking Drop

Tuta Mail, a popular encrypted email service, complained to European Union tech regulators that Google dropped its rankings for all sorts of keyword phrases with the Google March 2024 core update. Tuta is upset they no longer rank for [encrypted email] after this update.

Google Search App “Send A Link To This Page” When You Take A Screenshot

One of my pet peeves is when people send me screenshots of pages they want me to read and do not include the URL to that page. Well, the Google Search app is trying to solve that issue by telling the person who took a screenshot to “Send a link to this page” by clicking a big blue “Share” button.

Google Renames Product Sites To Product Websites

Google has renamed the Product Sites search filter to Product Websites. These only really show up in the European regions and starting last week, Google renamed “Sites” to “Websites.”

Slimmer Google Dog Tag

We have seen numerous dog tags for Dooglers, Google dogs, before. But this one looks slimmer than the old dog tags. I found this new photo of a Doogler and you can see the small Google collar tag.

Programming Note: Offline For Last Days Of Passover

This is a programming note that I will be completely offline for the last days of the Passover holiday. The last days of Passover are on Monday and Tuesday, April 29th and 30th. Any stories published here will be scheduled and written beforehand and not posted live.

Other Great Search Threads:

Search Engine Land Stories:

Feedback:

Have feedback on this daily recap; let me know on Twitter @rustybrick or @seroundtable, on Threads, Mastodon and Bluesky and you can follow us on Facebook and on Google News and make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts or just contact us the old fashion way.

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.

SEARCHENGINES

Daily Search Forum Recap: April 29, 2024

Published

2 days ago

April 30, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

Here is a recap of what happened in the search forums today, through the eyes of the Search Engine Roundtable and other search forums on the web.

Google’s March 2024 core update completed on April 19th, Google just didn’t confirm it until a week later. Google said its spam reporting tool will add site reputation abuse after May 5. Google responded to concerns over the Chrome IP masking and how it will impact advertisers. Google Knowlwdge Panels has translated sections. Apple Business Connect gains actions with links. Google AI is writing some knowledge panels. I am offline today, all these stories were pre-written and scheduled, including this newsletter.

Search Engine Roundtable Stories:

Google March 2024 Core Update Finished April 19th (A Week Ago)

The Google March 2024 core update finished a week ago and Google did not tell us until today. It finished officially on April 19, 2024, and took 45 days to roll out after starting on March 5, 2024. Google also said this helped reduce low-quality and unoriginal content in search results by 45%, which is up from their estimate of 40%.

Google Spam Reporting Tool To Gain Site Reputation Abuse

Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, said that the search company will add the upcoming site reputation abuse policy to the spam reporting tool when the policy begins to be enforced. So sometime after May 5, 2024, the report spam form will gain a new option to report site reputation abuse.

Google Responds To Concerns Over Chrome IP Masking

A week ago, Anu Adegbola wrote a fabulous piece on some new privacy changes that may be coming to Google Chrome in the future named Chrome IP masking and how that may impact advertisers. Ginny Marvin, the Google Ads Liaison, responded to those concerns, saying, “Chrome has not made any recent updates to its IP protection proposal.”

Google Knowledge Panel With Auto-Translated Texts

Google is auto-translating some of the content within the Google Knowledge Panels and blocks. So if you are in a location where you don’t only speak English, Google may show you your local language as an additional block of text in the knowledge panel.

Apple Business Connect Actions: Add Links To Apple Maps Local Listing

Apple Business Connect now lets you add links to your local listings that show up in Apple Maps. This is under the “actions” section that enables customers to order food, buy tickets, schedule an appointment, and more.

Google AI Writing Some Search Knowledge Panels

Google has for a long time used AI to write some knowledge panels. But now Google is labeling some of these AI written knowledge panels with “Al overviews are experimental” as a disclaimer. This may show up for both SGE and non-SGE results, I believe.

Google Maps Pigeon People

I am not sure where this first started but in Japan there is this group of people who dress up as pigeons when the Google Maps street view cameras drive by.

Programming Note: Offline For Last Days Of Passover

This is a programming note that I will be completely offline for the last days of the Passover holiday. The last days of Passover are on Monday and Tuesday, April 29th and 30th. Any stories published here will be scheduled and written beforehand and not posted live.

Other Great Search Threads:

Search Engine Land Stories:

Feedback:

Note: This was pre-written and scheduled to be posted today, I am currently offline for Passover.

SEARCHENGINES

Offline For Last Days Of Passover 5784

Published

3 days ago

April 29, 2024

Entireweb News Bot

This is a programming note that I will be completely offline for the last days of the Passover holiday. The last days of Passover are on Monday and Tuesday, April 29th and 30th. Any stories published here will be scheduled and written beforehand and not posted live.

I will be completely offline, so any social media posts, tweets, anything coming from this site or my social channels are all scheduled beforehand.

I won’t be able to reply to comments, remove spam or break any stories on those days. I will catch up when I get back online.

Feel free to check out the archives or catch up with the weekly videos or just browse the search pics. Oh, and if you have nothing to do, feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

For more on this holiday, check out Wikipedia.

For all those celebrating the holiday – have a good one and I’ll be back on Wednesday.