How embarrassing. New York Times reporter David Segal penned an article on Nov. 26 that left Google red-faced and spurred the search giant to immediate action.
The Times article told the disturbing tale of Clarabelle Rodriguez, who typed the name of her favorite eyeglass brand in Google’s search bar. As the story goes, Rodriguez found some frames she liked through a link at the top of the search results and proceeded to pay $361.97 for them through an online transaction. After a hassle with the retailer via phone, she received what appeared to be counterfeit shades — and she was charged an extra $125. It got worse from there.
“By treating your customers badly, one merchant told the paper, you can generate complaints and negative reviews that translate to more links to your site; which, in turn, make it more prominent in search engines,” Google Fellow Amit Singhal wrote on the Official Google Blog. “The main premise of the article was that being bad on the web can be good for business.”
Playing Down the Problem
Singhal said even though Google’s initial analysis indicated Rodriguez’s experience did not signal a widespread problem in search results, programmers built an algorithmic solution. But Google considered several other options first. Singhal said Google could have blocked the particular offender, but that wouldn’t solve the larger issue.
Google, he continued, could also have used sentiment analysis to identify negative remarks and turn negative comments into negative votes. While this concept may sound promising, Singhal said, it turns out to be based on a misconception. Google does have a sentiment-analysis system, but Singhal said if the company demoted web pages just because there are negative comments against them, the sites of elected officials, among others, might not be easily accessible.
Singhal cited yet another option: Placing user reviews and ratings for…