Google is a well-known company famous for its widely used search engine. The Google search engine is now under works for filtering malicious, slanderous websites off the top search results.
The company decided to push through to prevent unreliable websites from filling their search engine's result page. Google recently discovered a massive set of websites that host false, and potentially life-altering claims and accusations about individuals.
These sites go hand-in-hand with an industry of services that promise to wipe out the offending articles from search results with accompanying fees.
Google Search Engine Changes
The Verge reported that Google has finally decided to shed light on the endless websites that provide unverified accusations about individuals and companies. The tech giant is now setting up a series of changes to the Google search engine's algorithm.
By altering how the results are ranked, Google can contribute to combating slanderous websites.
The Verge also mentioned that Google's Vice president for Global Policy, David Graff, said that this resolution ought to make a positive and significant impact for the people and businesses affected by the false claims.
According to the New York Times, as of June, users who are victims of the said websites can use Google's pre-existing process. This will result in registering the victim as a "known victim."
Afterward, the Google search engine will automatically do its best to suppress similar results related to the victim's name.
Why it is Important
Google's decision to provide this change is a crucial shift, especially when considering how most of these sites typically operate. They routinely take posts from another site, and continuously republish them on various sites.
New York Times even did a social experiment where it made a post about one of its reporters. Afterward, 21 new articles were made about it on 15 slanderous websites.
Google's attempt to stop -- or at least, control these malicious websites could help nasty articles from clogging up the Google search engine's results, giving better chances for credible articles to be seen.
According to the news outlet, it would cost approximately $20,000 to take down these malicious websites. Individual websites typically charge at least $700 to take down a single post.
What to Expect in Google's New Search Algorithm
Google has already launched some of the new changes that they plan to use against slanderous websites. However, the company decided to take it slow by releasing the changes over a few months.
Nevertheless, the New York Times mentioned that they still found a problem with the approach after testing Google's new algorithm. Although the company has taken down most of the posts, Google's changes seem ineffective to a newly made slander site.
The new website could have lesser reports than others because it is still up and running.
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This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Fran Sanders
