Google's Fake News Algorithms are Taking Effect [View all]

[MineralMan]

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/08/02/pers-a02.html

Google has been working on decreasing the ranking of some sites that have published fake news in the past, including Russian-influenced and alt-left political news and political sites. Here's some interesting info from one of the sites that has seen its rankings drop substantially:

Google’s new search protocol is restricting access to 13 leading socialist, progressive and anti-war web sites

New data compiled by the World Socialist Web Site, with the assistance of other Internet-based news outlets and search technology experts, proves that a massive loss of readership observed by socialist, anti-war and progressive web sites over the past three months has been caused by a cumulative 45 percent decrease in traffic from Google searches.

The drop followed the implementation of changes in Google’s search evaluation protocols. In a statement issued on April 25, Ben Gomes, the company’s vice president for engineering, stated that Google’s update of its search engine would block access to “offensive” sites, while working to surface more “authoritative content.”

The World Socialist Web Site has obtained statistical data from SEMrush estimating the decline of traffic generated by Google searches for 13 sites with substantial readerships. The results are as follows:
* wsws.org fell by 67 percent
* alternet.org fell by 63 percent
* globalresearch.ca fell by 62 percent
* consortiumnews.com fell by 47 percent
* socialistworker.org fell by 47 percent
* mediamatters.org fell by 42 percent
* commondreams.org fell by 37 percent
* internationalviewpoint.org fell by 36 percent
* democracynow.org fell by 36 percent
* wikileaks.org fell by 30 percent
* truth-out.org fell by 25 percent
* counterpunch.org fell by 21 percent
* theintercept.com fell by 19 percent

Many of these sites may look familiar to DUers, although material from most of them is not appearing on DU as often as it did in 2016 and earlier. For some reason, we're not seeing them so much these days.