Google Skewing Search Results?

With the overall convenience of Google as a search engine, it’s easy for us to not worry about how it works and assume everything about it is working to help us. But a recent study published by the Yelp data science team and conducted by researchers at the Harvard Business School and Columbia Law School, reveals that there’s something fishy going on behind the scenes.

Click here to view the full research paper.

To put it succinctly, the research shows that Google often skews search results to display its own content before other, potentially more useful, results. The most obvious way this happens is through Google’s Local OneBox. This is the functionality that you often see on the right hand side when searching for something local. This usually gives you detailed information about a business and a link to its Google+/Google My Business page.

Because of this, businesses that have a Google+ page are almost always displayed first, even if they are less relevant to the search. This is why it’s always important to ensure that your web presence is being handled by someone who understands search engines and knows how to put your business on top. At Skynet, we specialize in SEO. Give us a call at 918-895-1982 and we’ll talk with you about how to make your business more visible on the web.

Paraphrased and summarized from this article: http://news360.com/article/300185046