Google is known for making some serious algorithm changes without notice, and this new algorithm change is a serious one. After the Presidential election, the internet was flooded with Fake News and rumors. Voters didn’t know what to believe, and Google's new search quickly went from being a place of honesty and transparency to a place where readers couldn’t separate fact from fiction. Rather than let people sort out rumors from facts, Google has now implemented a few algorithm changes, and this update has hit even the biggest news websites.
In addition to this algorithm change, Google is also rumored to be making some changes to the Search Results pages.
They are planning on highlighting quality content and removing the potentially upsetting and offensive content - and even fake news.
What Google’s new algorithm means for users
This new algorithm change could give you some high-quality search results and remove the offensive ones. But it’s uncertain what this means for fake news. Facebook has already tried to implement changes to get rid of fake news altogether, but the social network doesn’t want to remove satire sites.
Perhaps the tech giant will work with Google to figure out how to best eliminate fake news and offensive search results, so users get the best possible results.
Future changes
Google has been working on an option that allows users to take charge when it comes to “upsetting-offensive” content.
Soon, users will be able to flag the content they find upsetting, and the tech giant will be able to adjust the search results.
According to Yahoo Finance, this will allow Google to pinpoint what content is truly offending their users. The content they are seeking to eliminate includes animal cruelty, discrimination, child abuse and issues relating to racism and trafficking.
But who is searching and what’s the motive? There’s a big difference between searching for animal cruelty to try it out vs. doing research for a book or school paper, for example.
This also means that Google is eyeing a solution where the algorithms will be able to flag this kind of content via criteria, so users don’t have to do the work.
However, given that people have different views on various subject matters, such a solution may take time.
Don’t mind offensive content? Well, it’s not going anywhere soon. You will still see it going forward, but it may not rank as high.
What do you think of Google’s efforts to change the search algorithms again?
