How to Google Better

Google is everywhere in our online lives. We call up its simple interface, we type, we click, and the world opens up to us. But what is it, how does it work, and what version of the world does it show us?

A common misconception that Google directly searches the internet (or even is the entire Internet). But Google is actually an index--like in the back of a book. As you watch this video explaining Google's indexing process, consider: 

• What information in this video surprises you?

How much of the Internet do Google's spiders actually index? The figure often thrown around is that Google indexes only 4% of the Web, but the Internet is so huge that we can't be sure. What people do agree on is that Google indexes only a tiny portion of the internet.

On the one hand, that there are lots of useful sources that Google doesn't index. On the other hand, Google still indexes more webpages than you could ever view in your lifetime--around 60 billion, according to one researcher.

If you want to find what you're looking for--and to not let Google's algorithm overly determine which sources your information comes from--it is incredibly important to know

• how Google is structured
• where it succeeds and fails 
• how to use it to your information-seeking advantage

Google uses a secret, proprietary algorithm to rank and retrieve webpages. Page rankings are shaped by the activity of every webpage and every Google user.

But Google's algorithm also works to "learn" about your individual preferences and interests in order to deliver you what it thinks you want--along with targeted advertising, one of the key ways Google makes its money.

What does this mean for your search experience? In the video below, Eli Pariser discusses the unsettling consequences of Google's programming on our individual information landscapes--including those echo chambers you may have heard about. As you're viewing the video, consider:

• How balanced do you think your "information diet" is?
• How could you make it more balanced?

As Pariser discusses, Google's "neutral" algorithm is often anything but. Safiya Umoja Noble shows just how deeply this can shape the information ecosystem we tap into.

In the talk below, Noble discusses how race and gender bias get cooked into search algorithms when those algorithms respond to and incorporate the biases of searchers. 

There is also a thriving industry based on gaming Google's algorithm to make certain pages appear higher in your search results. 

As you watch this video, consider:

• Why do you think the kinds of racist, sexist, and inaccurate websites that Safiya Noble mentions show up in Google search results?
• What can (or should) we as a society do about this?

Warning: This talk contains discussion of sexual language and racist violence.