rankings

A change to Google's search algorithm for local rankings has prompted fierce debate about what information is most useful to customers. The rankings now vary minute to minute based on listed opening hours. The change affects "local pack ranking". ... That's the section that appears at the top of many Google search results pages showing three businesses close to the user's location and relating to the search. The section, often marked "Places" gives basic information about the business including its address and user ratings. Many business recently noted their appearance or non-appearance in this ... (view more)

Google has been fined $2.7 billion for unfairly favoring its own shopping services in search results. It's also got 90 days to stop the practice. The decision comes from the European Commission, the body that oversees competition law in 28 European ... countries. At the end of an investigation that started back in 2010, it now says Google did breach antitrust rules. The case relates to shopping comparison services, which let users see prices from multiple retailers. When people search Google for a particular product, the list of results will often include links to the relevant pages on such ... (view more)

Facebook has rejected claims that its staff manually 'suppressed' conservative-slanted news stories in its trending topics feature. That hasn't satisfied a Senate committee which has now demanded more information about how the feature works. The ... feature is the list of news articles that appears on the Facebook web page when users are logged in. It's presented as a list of the news topics and stories that users are most sharing and talking about on the site, with the impression being that its a purely objective ranking based on raw numbers. Trending Topics is separate to the ... (view more)

The European Union has formally accused Google of breaching competition rules by favoring its own sites in search rankings . It's a big step towards a potential $6.6 billion fine. The case involves specialist websites that let users compare prices ... and availability for retail products or travel deals. The EU claims that Google is effectively rigging the search results because it owns many of the sites in the list, and therefore places them higher in the search results ranking. It says that the favored sites are listed higher than they 'deserve', rather than listing the sites based ... (view more)