Google’s Page Rank Transparency Controversy
Over the past few years, Google has been greatly reducing the transparency of their Page Ranking Algorithm updates. In fact, they have become so secretive that Google does not even mark each update with a descriptive name; each update goes by the pseudonym “Fred.” The Fred updates are elusive and typically destructive to webpage owners. Many websites have seen their organic view count, which is the number of views on pages without advertisement, go down drastically after an update. But because Google is so hush-hush about the factors that change the sites’ Page Ranks, owners have no constructive criticism to base improvements of their page on. Many people are very against this lack of transparency, however, there are also arguments that explain why complete access to the algorithms would be very dangerous to the company and users. If Google released its full Page Rank algorithm many people would take advantage of the system and then there would be nothing fair about search engine results. This article describes the pros and cons of the “Fred” updates and discusses why companies struggle with balancing transparency and security.
This article directly connects to our class discussion on how Page Rank algorithms are developed. We learned about the Authority Update Rule and Hub Update Rule that are used in conjunction with each other to refine the Page Ranks of different websites. These procedures are what determine which sites are most reliable, relevant, and specific to a certain search question. This is extremely important due to the problem of “Abundance.” The term Abundance refers to the mass amounts of information on the web. Page Rank algorithms work to navigate this data, and because online information grows exponentially, companies must make changes to their algorithms to account for this. They also must account for people’s growing knowledge of Page Ranking. In class we learned how a page’s “value” is based off of other sites links to them and those sites values. Many people know this and other basics of the Page Rank process, so people write sites with the Page Rank systems in mind. Although the Authority Update Rule and Hub Update Rule are effective, in order to achieve a true Page Ranking, companies like Google must develop and update their algorithms.
https://searchenginewatch.com/2017/05/02/should-google-be-more-transparent-with-its-updates/