Why the Search Engine Isn’t Always Right

NoOne writes \”Here\’s An Interesting Story.

Google, when given a query for the term \”go to hell\” kicks back the home page of Microsoft. The official home pages for AOL Time Warner Inc.\’s America Online division and for Walt Disney Co. also come in among the top five results under the \”go to hell\” query.


Although Google offered no explanation on the \”go to hell\” matter, Google\’s site is famous for its \”link analysis\” method of producing search results. When users enter a word or term, they get back not just those Web sites containing that term but other sites as well, that are linked to those that contain the word or phrase, in question.


Microsoft\’s home page, in other words, may not contain the phrase \”go to hell\” anywhere, but there are apparently a lot of other sites out there that mention Microsoft (or AOL, or Disney) and going to hell in the same context.
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I got quite different results just now when I did it.