2. Databases vs. Google
Databases: Google:
Professionally
Much personally
published generated content
information
Questionable
authority
Identifiable authority Difficult to focus
Easy search search
paramaters May take a long
Quick access to time to get quality
quality information information
3. Google
Offersthe most popular search engine
Has developed lots of other applications
The most successful advertising
company in history
Uses data mining & targeted advertising
based on user habits
4. Google Search Results
Results page lists links delivered in order
of “Google authority,” affected by, amongst
other things:
Page content (relevancy)
Backlinks (domain authority)
Profitability for Google
5. Google “Authority” Implications:
Google good for quickly finding non-
controversial, authoritative sites
(eg: a movie home page)
Google bad for quickly finding factual
information on controversial topics
(eg: Israel-Palestine conflict)
Skewed results towards “page
spammers,” “content farmers,” and
commercial / Google-owned sites
7. “Global Warming”
~197,000,000 results (@ time slide created)
Lots of sponsored links - $$$ factor
Wikipedia entry - $$$ factor
Google News - $$$ factor
Charities - $$$ factor
Good (and poor / biased / outdated)
information sources
You must spend a lot of time assessing
page content to assure quality information!
8. Who wants to spend that much
time trying to find good
information?