{"id":1826,"date":"2016-11-21T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-21T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.canirank.com\/blog\/?p=1826"},"modified":"2020-11-25T10:50:15","modified_gmt":"2020-11-25T18:50:15","slug":"analysis-of-political-bias-in-internet-search-engine-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.canirank.com\/blog\/analysis-of-political-bias-in-internet-search-engine-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Study: Does Google have a political bias?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Although internet search engines like Google play an increasingly prominent role shaping voter opinions and perception of issues and candidates, their ranking algorithms aren\u2019t designed to provide a fairly balanced or completely honest representation of controversial issues.<\/p>\n

In order to assess how fairly search engine results portray political candidates and controversial issues, we collected over 1,200 URLs ranking highly in Google.com for politically-charged keywords such as \u201cgun control<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cabortion<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cTPP<\/strong>\u201d, and \u201cBlack Lives Matter<\/strong>\u201d. Each URL was then assessed for political slant by politically active individuals from both the left and right. Finally, we used CanIRank\u2019s SEO software<\/a> to analyze how each URL compared in dozens of different ranking factors to determine whether Google\u2019s algorithm treated websites similarly regardless of their political slant.<\/p>\n

Among our key findings were that top search results were almost 40% more likely to contain pages with a \u201cLeft\u201d or \u201cFar Left\u201d slant<\/strong> than they were pages from the right. Moreover, 16% of political keywords contained no right-leaning pages<\/strong> at all within the first page of results.<\/p>\n

Our analysis of the algorithmic metrics underpinning those rankings suggests that factors within the Google algorithm itself may make it easier for sites with a left-leaning or centrist viewpoint to rank higher in Google search results compared to sites with a politically conservative viewpoint.<\/p>\n

Why Web Search Matters to Democracy<\/h2>\n

This fall, Gallup reported that Americans\u2019 trust in mass media<\/a><\/span>\u00a0had hit an all time low, with fewer than a third of the population saying they have a great deal or a fair amount of trust in mass media — such as newspapers, TV, and radio.<\/p>\n

Perhaps a direct result of this distrust in traditional mass media, Americans are increasingly turning to online sources for their information.<\/p>\n

According to recent Google findings<\/a><\/span>, online search is the resource that 87% of the population turns to first<\/strong> when a question arises.<\/p>\n

Online search plays a particularly prominent role in the democratic process during election season. During the 2012 election cycle, a survey of persuadable voters<\/a><\/span>\u00a0revealed that 49% get their news about campaigns and the election online, largely through search engines like Google, and that these voters generally trust the information they find online.<\/p>\n

Top search results are broadly perceived as being the most accurate and authoritative by members of the public with the first five search results accounting for an estimated 67% of all clicks<\/a><\/span>\u00a0and the first three results alone accounting for over 55% of all clicks.<\/p>\n

In their 2015 study<\/a><\/span>, Robert Epstein and Ronald Robertson concluded that the order of search results can have a big impact on voter behavior — and in the event of a close election, this effect could even be profound enough to determine the outcome of the election<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

The extent to which a single private company now controls the flow of information is unprecedented in a country historically characterized by pluralistic and ideologically diverse media. This trend is particularly troubling when one considers that the employees of this\u00a0private company do not reflect\u00a0the ideological diversity of the country at large, and have consistently been amongst the largest donors<\/a> to Democratic party candidates.<\/p>\n

Should Search Engines Be Required to Give Equal Time?<\/h2>\n

Fairly presenting both sides of an issue has been considered essential to a functioning democracy since the very early years, when America\u2019s founding fathers used subsidies<\/a><\/span>\u00a0to support the development and survival of a diverse media corps. Since 1927, radio and later television broadcast stations have been required to give equal time to opposing political candidates. For many years, the Fairness Doctrine required media to present both sides of controversial issues in an honest and equitable manner, a standard that many journalists still aspire to.<\/p>\n

Now that web search has largely superseded radio and television as the primary source of information for most Americans, should web search results also be expected\u00a0to present both sides of an issue?<\/p>\n

In our sample set of over 2,000 search results, we found that searchers are 39%<\/strong>\u00a0more likely to be presented information with a left-leaning bias than they are information from the right.<\/p>\n

But for some keywords, the search results are even more egregious. Does it make sense, for example, that someone researching \u201cRepublican platform<\/strong>\u201d should be presented only the official text of the platform and seven left-leaning results highly critical of that platform, with zero results supporting it?<\/p>\n

\"republican-platform-search-results\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

For other controversial keywords like \u201cminimum wage<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cabortion<\/strong>,\u201d \u201cNAFTA<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cIraq war<\/strong>\u201d, \u201ccampaign finance reform<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cglobal warming<\/strong>\u201d, \u201cmarijuana legalization<\/strong>\u201d, \u00a0and \u201ctpp<\/strong>\u201d, no right-leaning websites are to be found among the top results.<\/p>\n

Search results for keywords like \u201cHillary Clinton seizures<\/strong>\u201d and \u201cHillary Clinton sick<\/strong>\u201d, on the other hand, were dominated by right-leaning websites and YouTube footage.<\/p>\n

The proportion of results with\u00a0a\u00a0left-leaning bias<\/em>\u00a0increased for top ranking results, which typically receive the majority\u00a0of clicks. For example, we found that search results denoted as demonstrating a left or far left slant received 40% more exposure in the\u00a0top 3 ranking spots than search results considered to have a right or far right political slant.<\/p>\n

\"Political<\/p>\n

Content with a left or far left viewpoint receives even more exposure in the top five search results. Searchers are 65% more likely to encounter liberal search results than they are conservative search results if they look at the first five returns to their query. Assuming typical click distributions, that means only\u00a01\u00a0out of 10 searchers would end up clicking on a result with a conservative viewpoint.<\/p>\n

\"Political<\/p>\n

Why do sites from the left feature more prominently in Google\u2019s search results?<\/h2>\n

Google considers about 200 major ranking factors in their algorithm to determine which results to serve a user in response to a search query. In order to calculate accurate keyword difficulty scores<\/a>, our software collects and analyzes many of those same factors, allowing us to gain some insight into why certain pages rank where they do. Of these many factors, Google has identified links<\/strong> (i.e., the number and quality of links pointing to a page) and content<\/strong> (i.e., relevancy and comprehensiveness) to be the two most important ranking factors<\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n

Average number of external links<\/h3>\n

Based on previously documented correlations<\/a><\/span>\u00a0between specific ranking factor metrics analyzed by CanIRank and actual search rankings, we would expect top ranked search results to have more external links compared to lower ranked search results.<\/p>\n

Instead, pages demonstrating a left or far left political slant\u00a0made it into the top results with significantly fewer external links<\/strong>\u00a0compared to pages rated balanced. Pages with a right-leaning slant needed significantly more links to make it into the top results.<\/p>\n

\"Number<\/p>\n

Median content length<\/h3>\n

Content length is another metric that tends to correlate<\/a><\/span>\u00a0with higher rankings<\/a>, as it indicates a greater depth of information on a subject. For example, small businesses and startups<\/a> are often able to rank well despite having fewer links, if they provide more comprehensive content on a specific topic.<\/p>\n

Among our sample list of search results, right-leaning pages had a higher median number of words<\/strong> across all 40 results compared to both neutral and left-leaning pages. Despite this, neutral and left-leaning pages represented a greater proportion of top search results.<\/p>\n

\"Median<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

In addition to external links and content length, we analyzed a host of other ranking factors including:<\/p>\n