Bing Results Abuse Your Likes
As Google continues to value brands, giving them the first few spots in rankings, I was curious how Bing handled brands and even MLB teams.
I searched for “Yankees” thinking they are the most well known MLB team and would be a good place to start. The search results yielded the following:
Never in my wildest dreams would I think Dan Stamm would have a big thumbs up under the Yankees homepage. In actuality, Dan liked MLB on Facebook and so, at Bing’s discretion, the engine decided to place Dan’s “Like” endorsement under this subdomain result.
Dan would wholeheartedly “Like” an article about the Yankees entire team rolling their ankles during warmup for tonight’s game. If social influence was off on this, where else could your pseudo endorsement end up? Bing has now misrepresented your sport teams. We’ll let this one slide.
VisitPhilly.com is one of the big “all about Philly” kinds of sites. News, events, & everything. Lots of people Like the site on Facebook.
Enter Conflict.
There was a big debate about putting a casino on the Delaware river in Philadelphia. casiNO was plastered on posters across the city for people against having a casino in the city. The casino was built. VisitPhilly.com wrote an article about it. Now, Erin, Eric & Michelle are all placed under the casino article only because they Like Visit Philly on Facebook. Bing has now associated you with a casino/gambling. Still comfortable with what’s going on? Lets dive further.
Westboro Baptist? Just because I Like the local FOX29 station now means I can have my endorsement under coverage about Westboro protesting in Philadelphia? The people who Like FOX29 didn’t know what they were going to be associated with.
I never thought I’d write about abortion news coverage on the SEER blog, but because my friends Like NPR, they now have a thumbs up next to their faces & names under an anti-abortion trial article. That’s not relevant at all AND that is the point of this post.
Bing needs to get a better understanding when implementing social into search. Just because I Like one Facebook fan page doesn’t mean every subpage & subdomain of the main site should receive my social endorsement. When Dan Stamm likes MLB on Facebook, his face & thumbs up should only show under the homepage result, not when the Yankees page is returned. When my friends like VisitPhilly or FOX29, their endorsement should show up under the homepage, not under an article about the new casino or abortion.
I’m sure the terms of use click box made this fine to do, but it’s not fine to add unrelated social nonsense to search results.
Posted: 07.06.11
Adrian Drysdale:
That is a massive discovery! This needs to be publicised more. Stuff like this should force them to rewrite their entire algorithm immediately. The fact that they can twist around what you recommend and apply it to whatever they want could cause massive lawsuits against them.
Alan:
Only solution I have is to no longer like anything on facebook. It’s the only way I see to keep bing from twisting my words or endorsements into meaning something completely different. As social becomes a bigger part of search, it makes you want to be more cautious of what you do on social networks since it can end up putting your seal of approval on something that shows up in search results.
jake:
it makes no sense and great article. If i like hbo that doesn’t mean i like sex in the city. Maybe i only liked the sopranos or game of thrones. It is way over reaching on their part and i would not want to be associated with yankee fans either
Darren:
Wow, interesting post. Have you seen the same thing with Google+1 or is it too early to tell?
Janet:
Anything goes in social networking–intentional or otherwise. A FB friend posted the WSJ article about “The Insidious Evils of ‘Like’ Culture: and I “liked” my friend’s post on FB to show my appreciation for irony. When I read the article on WSJ, I noticed WSJ was telling the world that I, my FB friend and 10+K plus others “recommended” the article.
Adam Melson:
Adrian – a problem Bing & Google may not be able to solve for some time.
Alan – as more groups try to get LIkes and grow, more & more people will like too many things. Definitely drowns the credibility of mixing social into search.
Jake – whats wrong with sex in the city? jk, I’m with you on what you’re saying
Darren – I haven’t seen this showing up in my view with +1. G+ should start allowing company pages in the next week or so.