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Ask HN: Does Google manually alter search results?

8 points by zepto ↗ HN
This has been a topic that has come up in the news and congress etc, but I haven’t seen a straight answer anywhere.

My question is - does Google have manual tools for changing the priority of where specific urls appear in the search results?

I’m not talking about statistical inputs from quality raters etc, and I’m not particularly wanting to discuss what policies govern the use of such tools.

I just want to know if they have the mechanism or not.

Can anyone, Googler or not, shed light on this?

5 comments

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moondev
Of course they do? I'm not sure why this is even remotely debatable?
babygoat
Just for fun, I’ll assert that they don’t.

Can you prove me wrong? If not, then it’s debatable.

gesman
For expensive $50+/click keywords i am sure there is a whole team tweaking SERPs in favor of "good" customers.
saluki
The Google SERP just keeps getting worse, I wish Amazon or Apple would start a search engine and just get back to what the Google SERP used to be.

I'd even be ok with amazon supporting it with ads for products, just don't try to blend ads in to the SERP. There is almost no organic search results left and the quality has gone down hill as well.