Google Search Results Sometimes Link to Fraudulent Sites
Google has come under fire recently for directing shoppers to fraudulent websites that sell fake items. Many of these sites are linked to on the first page of search results, among Google’s top recommended results. In some cases, as high as 60 percent of links on the first page of results for a search led to goods suspected of being fake. This calls into question the reliability of Google’s algorithms to provide reputable links to users. Google is commonly thought of as one of the best search engines for finding reputable resources. If Google sends users to fraudulent websites, its entire business model could be in jeopardy.
The sites that google links to typically have high authority scores, meaning that they are linked to by many different hubs and not just by google. Furthermore, Google desires to maintain a high hub score, which encourages them to link their pages to other pages with high authority scores. Google likely links to these fraudulent sites because they have high authority scores, despite selling fake goods. Google is likely not entirely to blame for this, if they are to blame at all, since, as we saw in Problem Set 4, it is possible to design many webpages in order to boost the authority score of a specific page. It is very likely that the creators of these fraudulent sites have done this in order to give their page a high authority score, causing Google to direct users to it, thus increasing traffic to their site, which will increase their sales.