Hyderabad: A Google search for the term “idiot” returned images of US President Donald Trump! Likewise, a search for “Next CM of Telangana” yields the name of K.T. Rama Rao, and “Next CM of AP” returns Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy.
This does not mean that Google is endowed with any special knowledge; rather, it predicts based on frequent searches. Google search relies heavily on algorithms and ranking of the page.
A screengrab of Google search where it shows images of Donald Trump when searched for ‘idiot’.
Algorithms are the computer processes and formulae that take your questions and turn them into answers.
According to Google, Algorithms rely on more than 200 unique signals or “clues” that make it possible to guess what you might really be looking for. These signals include things like the terms on websites, the freshness of content, your region and Page Rank.
Previously, a Google image search for “Top 10 Criminals” showed a picture of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Recently, after the release of the movie Race 3, a search for “worst Bollywood actor” showed Salman Khan. Even now, search for the word ‘Pappu’ shows images of Congress President Rahul Gandhi or Nara Lokesh.
Often celebrities become a target of these searches because websites put up content.
It may be noted that the words may be out of context, but the algorithm can be gamed using keywords and up votes.
Swelling up of votes on a story happens on Quora or Reddit, which impacts the accuracy of the search result.
The case of Trump involved people up voting a post on Reddit containing a photo of him and the word “idiot”. Likewise, results to the query “next CM of AP” being Jagan was because of up votes on Quora.
“Trump's name came up as idiot as people kept up voting a post containing a photo of him and the word ‘idiot’. Google doesn’t create searches. It crawls and finds out what is the similarity. When an article is written or published online, it is tagged with a keyword because it needs to be seen. So if someone searches for the specific phrase, they will be directed to that link. Websites rely heavily on click baits. Even if the article doesn’t actually claim the searched key word, because of the combination of words such names will appear,” said K. Kamal Prasad, SEO of a private company
For a simple question you ask Google, there are thousands, even millions, of web pages with potentially relevant information. So, to help rank the best pages first, Google writes algorithms to evaluate how useful these web pages are.
