[chflags]

In the late 1990's when they started, around the same time as Metafilter, maybe Google was honestly trying to rank websites based on href's, as some perceived indicator of website popularity.

But over time how much has Google itself influenced the product of its own "Pagerank" algorithm?

If Google places a website as a first search result for some frequently searched term(s), even if by accident, then that website is going to become very popular, very quickly.

Opinion: Google determines the popularity of a website.

In the early days we believed they were presenting results based on the relative popularity of websites. At some stage Google itself became the determinant for the popularity of websites.

Stories like this one support this idea.

One could argue Google is running what amounts to an online version of the Yellow Pages where the ads can be changed or rearranged hourly, daily, weekly, etc. Instead of calling a telephone number to place an ad in the Yellow Pages, one has to enter an opaque Adwords auction for words instead of ads.

But for the small business, especially those who do not bid on words, it gets worse. A business listing in the search results will likely never been seen if it is not in the top 10, i.e., on page 1.

Imagine if this were true for the Yellow Pages, which is organized alphabetically. Businesses with names beginning with numbers or the letter "A" would receive a grossly disproportionate share of calls, because no one would ever get past the first page of listings.

As crazy as it sounds, I think there's an argument Google and not the user is effectively doing the choosing. Whether it's intentional or not is irrelevant. The way the system is implemented and used, this is the effect. And this only benefits Google.

[DougN7]

> Businesses with names beginning with numbers or the letter "A" would receive a grossly disproportionate share of calls,

Look in your yellow pages for plumbers, taxis, etc. You'll notice a disproportionate number of them named things like A, A1, AAA, etc.

I'll bet they do it because they do (or believe they will) get more calls.

[dalore]

But don't Google also analyze how long you spent at a site when you click results. So you click into a site, it's not what you wanted so you back out and click another result. Google records that and sees that site wasn't useful to you at that time for that search word. So it drops in popularity.

[slig]

I've always wondered if/how that works on power users that opens multiple results on multiple tabs right after searching.

[alaskamiller]

Google runs a beauty contest on the internet.

Contestants vie for first, second, third, so on. Over the past few years by the inherent nature of competition tips and tricks get shared and things normalize. Meaning, everyone starts to look the same.

Oh, you can also just cheat the contest to be ahead of first place by paying more than the next person.

[chillingeffect]

Yes they are (under the well-intended banner of "quality"), and I'm no fanboy for google, but the real theme is monocultures:

It seems so great to have one-size-fits-all solutions - penicillin, Hollywood, iTunes, U.S. Government, "just google it," Microsoft Word, single strain of bananas. But, flexibility and divserity are needed to endure and survive the long-term.

[nibs]

I love the single strain of bananas inclusion. It is a giant problem. They are one of the worst strains according to friends who work in produce sourcing. We need to find a way to popularize consumption of saline/sea vegetables. And I agree with what you say, also.