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Do human actions sometimes shape Google's search results?

Tuesday, August 4, 2020
By Christopher Hutton
YES

Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified before Congress recently that the company sometimes intervenes manually to block certain websites from search results, normally for security reasons, such as malware or phishing scams, or for legal reasons.

Some publishers have accused it of being biased against politically opinionated content. A July "glitch," when several partisan news and opinion sites weren't accessible for part of a day, raised questions. The company told Mediaite, a media news site, the interruption resulted from a "technical error."

Search-industry analysts say appearances of bias can be explained by the mechanics of Google's process. "Ranking factors are related to site quality and user experience, nothing about specific types of content," an industry blog says.

This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
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