- Jan 24, 2011
- 9,378
When the world learned that EU antitrust regulators were investigating claims that Google unfairly manipulated its search results at the expense of competitors, Google's European corporate counsel was unequivocal in her defense of the company. "We don’t whitelist or blacklist anyone,” Julia Holtz told journalists in Brussels last February, according to The Financial Times.
Holtz seemed to imply that Google does not manually override its search algorithms, that all sites are subject to the same mathematical rules. But Google does manually intervene, and this past week, for the first time, the company at least partially explained its rules for search penalties, including manual demotions.
"We have confirmed that Google's webspam team is willing to take action manually – for example, if we get a spam report, off-topic porn, things like that," Google's Matt Cutts said in a video posted to the web on Monday. He also discussed algorithmic penalties, and he said that whereas site owners could appeal manual interventions, they could not appeal the algorithmic variety. This was new information, and it provides some additional insight into the dispute under investigation by the EU.
More details - link
Holtz seemed to imply that Google does not manually override its search algorithms, that all sites are subject to the same mathematical rules. But Google does manually intervene, and this past week, for the first time, the company at least partially explained its rules for search penalties, including manual demotions.
"We have confirmed that Google's webspam team is willing to take action manually – for example, if we get a spam report, off-topic porn, things like that," Google's Matt Cutts said in a video posted to the web on Monday. He also discussed algorithmic penalties, and he said that whereas site owners could appeal manual interventions, they could not appeal the algorithmic variety. This was new information, and it provides some additional insight into the dispute under investigation by the EU.
More details - link
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