Google Looks to Battle Fake News with Search Improvements

Google knows that search can always be improved.

Their quest to improve it began years ago with PageRank and algorithms as they battled low-quality content farmers and their deceptive practices.  They tackled these problems, and others over the years, made regular updates to their algorithms and introduced new features to prevent people from gaming the system.

Today, in a world where tens of thousands of pages are coming online every minute of every day, there are endless new ways for people to try to game the system.

The most high profile of these issues is the phenomenon of “fake news,” where content on the web has contributed to the spread of blatantly misleading, low quality, offensive or downright false information.

While this problem is different from issues in the past, Google’s goal remains the same—to provide people with access to relevant information from the most reliable sources available.

Today Google announced they are taking the next step toward continuing to surface more high-quality content from the web. This includes improvements in Search ranking, easier ways for people to provide direct feedback, and greater transparency around how Search works.