Beginner’s Guide to Google PageRank: How It Works & Why It Still Matters in 2018
https://www.link-assistant.com/news/page-rank-2018.html
As can be seen by the article, “Beginner’s Guide to Google PageRank: How It Works & Why It Still Matters in 2018”, PageRanks might not be visible to the public anymore but still play a large role in what pages we see in our searches. Advantages for them can be argued, by describing how page ranks “find those pages that users really look for [and] show users which pages are the best and safes” (Niechai 1). Links to pages can create link spam, with links being farmed and sold (essentially buying for PageRank boosts) in order to receive more user attention. This can lead to more control to certain corporations to be more visible and accessed by others, and giving the user less control in what they see.
Although Page Rank is an invention that makes “Google so efficient and authoritative”, it can easily be manipulated to have a disastrous outcome (Niechai 1). The use of PageRank can create sort of echo-chambers, where users will only be introduced to certain information and not get other sides or views on topics.
This relates to topics covered in class because we have been observing just how intricate the network between pages is, and how the score of each site can vary depending on what it is linked to/what it links. It is important to understand that what we review in class and learn in simple examples has a large implication on the world we live in, the content we see, and who actually has the power over media. It is clear that something needs to be done in order to ensure the safety to access to unbiased and varied information.