Google's Establishmentarianism
BY Nancy Scola | Friday, March 5 2010
National Journal suggests that political incumbents have amongst their advantages Google Juice. The longer political records of office-holders, as (generally speaking) compared to challengers, provide Google more to work with, and can boost those establishment folks higher in search rankings than their underdog peers:
Google acknowledges that its search methodology may provide certain competitors with advantages. "We understand how important rankings can be to Web sites... because a higher ranking typically drives higher volumes of traffic," wrote Google senior competition counsel Julia Holtz last week on the company's public policy blog.
Google ranks its search results using algorithms that aspire to call up the most useful pages. It boosts pages that seem more important and reliable, considering such variables as how much traffic a page receives and how frequently other sites have linked to it. "Google's intention is to show what's most relevant," said Galen Panger, a spokesman on Google's elections and advocacy team. "The point is to provide the most valuable results."
While it's not at all surprising, one example of Google-cumbancy is that the very first result for a Google search that combines the words "California" and "Senator" is Dianne Feinstein. Barbara Boxer is the second most popular result. (For what it's worth, Feinstein's held elected office for at least a decade longer than Boxer.) Carly Fiorina, to pick a challenger, doesn't make it onto the first page of results.
NatJo acknowledges that there are plenty of things that creative candidates can do to make sure that Google isn't providing their opponents with a substantial advantage, but it's certainly worth keeping in mind should you not be a politician with 30+ years of experience. (Thanks Shaun Dakin)