For class we did a report on a search engine. The one I happened to pick was Google. How Google runs the searches and the order in which a page comes up is very interesting. Here were my findings:

According to The American Heritage Dictionary Forth Edition a search engine is defined as: A software program that searches a database and gathers and reports information that contains or is related to specified terms. Google, one of the largest search engines on the Internet, does just that, but at what cost to the advertiser? Google offers for businesses that don’t want to spend a lot of money Google Adwords. This is advertising based on how many times that business’s site is visited. The business gets to pick the key words and it makes its own advertisement to post. To start out the business needs a $5 activation fee and as the Google site says: After that, you tell us how much you are willing to pay per click and per day. The “willing” cost ranges from $0.05 to $50 per click. Google also answers the question on how a business can have their site on the top positioning every time: Google AdWords does not rank ads solely on cost. There is no way to reserve top placement in the AdWords program. In a different part of Google’s site it says, “Your ad is ranked on the search results and content pages based on a combination of its maximum cost-per-click (CPC) and clickthrough rate (CTR). The higher your CPC or CTR, the higher your ad's position.” Remember the CPC is the rate the company is willing to pay per click, and what else is interesting about this statement is that in the first sentence it says the rate is based on a combination, but in the second sentence it uses the word “or” between the CPC and CTR. If it were a combination of both the conjunction and would be there, not or! Another way for companies to get ahead on the Google site is to pay a minimum of $10, 000 per month for at least a three month time period for Google to do their advertising for them.

On Google’s technology page it describes just how search results are found. The site claims it is from an algorithm, unique hardware and software and to thousands of PCs they have networked together. Their integrity promise to their viewers and advertisers is: Google's complex, automated methods make human tampering with our results extremely difficult. And though we do run relevant ads above and next to our results, Google does not sell placement within the results themselves (i.e., no one can buy a higher PageRank). A Google search is an easy, honest and objective way to find high-quality websites with information relevant to your search. Search King doesn’t agree with the algorithm or the integrity promise. According to an October 22, 2002 posting on www.searchenginewatch.com Search King filled a lawsuit against Google because they believed that Google, “purposefully reduced Search King’s value, as well as that of Web sites hosted by Search King. This is due to the fact that Search King was legally profiting from the page ranking assigned by Google to certain Web sites, with the intent to cause Search King’s clients to cancel contracts with Search King." Search King, on a scale of 1 to 10 (one being lowest favored PageRank, and 10 being the highest favored), was an 8 on the PageRank in July 2002, and a month later they declined to a 4. According to the complaint, the Web hosting company in August started the PR Ad Network--an advertising network in which it sold text links on the popular Web sites to get them a better listing in Google’s results. Search King claims that after they started this, this is why their site’s PageRank declined to a 4. Can people that work for Google tamper with PageRank, Google says no. This isn’t the first lawsuit against Google. A French purse designer is also suing Google for somewhat of the same reasons. His claim is that Google is posting designer knockoff purses and not the real thing when users type in the name of the purse or his name.

Even though Google is one of the largest search engines on the Web, there is no proof listed that they do in fact take bribes. They claim that money has nothing to do with PageRank, but if that were the case then why is there such a variance in cost? They don’t explain the whole algorithm behind PageRank and it isn’t available for the public to see. From the research that I have done, I have concluded that Google does put better PageRank for the higher “bidders."