YouTube and Objective Search Results
May 13, 2020
DarkCyber, working from a run down miner’s camp in rural Kentucky, does not understand the outside world. One of the DarkCyber research team who actually graduated from middle school spotted this article: “YouTube CEO Admits Users Don’t Like Boosting Of “Authoritative” Mainstream Channels, But They Do It Anyway.”
The article appears to present information implicating the most popular video service in Eastern Europe, including and the “stans” in some surprising activities.
The article asserts:
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki admits that the company knows its users don’t like the video giant rigging its own algorithm to boost “authoritative” mainstream sources, but that they do it anyway.
The article notes:
For several years now, the company has artificially gamed its own search engine to ensure that independent content creators are buried underneath a wall of mainstream media content. This rigging is so severe that the company basically broke its own search engine, with some videos posted by independent creators almost impossible to find even if the user searches for the exact title.
One fascinating connection between the providers of content from Van Wives is:
the company’s disdain for its own user base was also underscored by its Chief Product Officer Neil Mohan insulting non-mainstream YouTube creators as basement-dwelling idiots. This followed a new policy by the company to remove any content that challenged the World Health Organization’s official coronavirus guidelines, despite the fact that those guidelines have changed numerous times.
Here in Kentucky, the world is shaped by individuals walking along empty roads and mostly unused trails in the hills.
When big city information like this reaches the DarkCyber research team, our first instinct is to search Google and YouTube, maybe Google News or the comprehensive Google Scholar indexes. But this write up suggests that the information displayed may be subjective, the team is confused.
The team believes that what appears in the Google search results is accurate.
Sometimes we don’t believe the state’s environmental officer who has recently decided to wear shoes. The information in the hollow is that yellow green water is safe to drink.
Does this person obtain information as we do? A Google search? Are those Google algorithms the digital equivalent of the local grocer who puts his grimy thumb on the scale when weighing kiwano and feijoa? Our grocer tells us that durian smells great too.
Stephen E Arnold, May 13, 2020
Google: Trimming Expenses Signals an Abstemious Tremor
May 12, 2020
Times are changing at the Google. Despite being the world’s best and biggest online advertising service, the company is slowly morphing into an MBA centric operation.
CNBC published “Google Tells Employees They Can’t Expense Food or Other Perks When Working from Home.” The write up states:
The company issued an updated policy in the last week that states employees cannot expense perks while working from home, including food, fitness, home office furniture, decoration or gifts… The policy also states that employees cannot use unused budgets to do things like purchase meals for themselves or their teams during virtual meetings or donate to charities of their choice.
What’s interesting is that I saw Googlers living in their vehicles on or near Google properties in Mountain View. These individuals either chose van life to avoid the pre-Covid commute or because they could not afford a house or apartment.
Since these people live in some cases on Google premises, the change in perk policy may be particularly interesting. For Googlers who relied on the company for food face other hurdles. Nuking burritos in a microwave can get old fast.
What other financial tweaks will be forthcoming as the online ad giant tries to deal with the impact of the natural force of Covid and the unnatural force of the Bezos bulldozer scraping product search and advertising dollars from underneath Googzilla’s paws?
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2020
Can Covid Virtue Signals Beep More Loudly? Sure
May 12, 2020
The Filipino Department of Health (DOH), Senti AI, and Google have combined their powers to fight COVID-19. Infochat reports on the development in the article, “DOH Partners With Google To Unify COVID-19 Communications Nationwide Using Artificial Intelligence.” The Filipino Department of Health wants to use Google and Senti AIs’ advanced technology to centralize communications related to COVID-19 so all information is consistent and updated. The plan is to use Senti AI’s AI-enhanced knowledge management tool that uses Google technologies.
The DOH has partnered with other communication organizations before, but COVID-19 information is constantly changing. The lack of a centralized communication systems increases information delays or different versions. Consistency, frequency, and rapidly are the DOH’s main goals with the Senti AI and Google partnership.
The new communication management tool will contain COVID-19 FAQs, latest government guidelines, and public and health worker inquiries. The tool will also simplify the information search and allow the DOH to update/modify contents.
“‘The DOH hopes that this effort can mitigate the spread of fake news by providing a reliable and verified source of information that can be accessed by all citizens,’ said DOH Undersecretary Maria Rosario S. Vergeire. ‘Now more than ever, it’s crucial that all Filipinos act as one to overcome these difficult times. We need to be quick, focused, and united in the way we work together because there is no room for miscommunication and delay when lives are at stake. This is why it’s a very big honor for us to serve our country through this technology,’ said Ralph Regalado, CEO of Senti AI.”
Unfortunately the COVID-19 communications tool is only being developed for the Philippines. With all the news outlets and technology, could the US make use of this system?
Whitney Grace, May 12, 2020
Putting Wood Behind the Toronto Project: Why Google Drops Projects
May 11, 2020
If DarkCyber were asked, “What cloud vendor should I use?”, the answer must consider persistence, consistency, and commitment.
Amazon, bless their prime heart, continues to take orders, deploy new AWS services, and make documentation which baffles. IBM is trying to turn its digital battleship into something capable of delivering AIops, whatever that is while it sells mainframes. Microsoft is pushing its Azure concept forward as it leaves the baffled Surface users and frustrated Window 10 update lovers at the altar. Even Oracle demonstrated that low prices can zoom forward.
But Google?
With the news reported in “Sidewalk Labs Announces It Will No Longer Pursue Quayside Project,” Google makes it clear that stick-to-ativity is not the company’s core competency. The write up states:
the economic circumstances made it “too difficult” to make the 12-acre project financially viable without sacrificing “core parts” of its plan. Sidewalk Labs, which has a 30-person office on the waterfront, will continue to work on some of its proposed innovations, including mass timber construction, a digital master-planning tool, and its approach to all-electric neighborhoods.
Ah, ha. Covid and not the push by Google to get money from tax and other assessments. Like other Google projects, this smart city thing is not really going away. It’s a pre beta testing thing.
What’s this have to do with Google’s cloud push? Decisions like waving goodbye to Toronto are tough to ignore. Forgetting Dodgeball and Web Accelerator are easy, but pulling out of Toronto is a major move.
Why does Google drop projects?
Google sells ads.
I am not convinced that its up to the task of delivering over time what government and commercial customers require; that is, confidence that Alphabet won’t spell “sayonara” with AdWords without warning. Automated ads are easier than creating something, overcoming hurdles, and persevering. Hey, let’s play ping pong. That putting wood behind a tough job for sure.
Stephen E Arnold, May 11, 2020
Google Australia: Whose Head Is in What Logical Pouch?
May 6, 2020
I spotted this story in my UK news stream this morning (May 6, 2020 at 0600 am): “Google Is Like a Poster in the Newsagent’s Window for Publishers, Tech Giant Says.”
Is this argument reminiscent to those of the first year high school debaters offer?
The write up reports with truth and accuracy that Google Australia’s managing director said:
“Publishers provide posters with headlines for newsagents to display in their windows to help draw customers to buy papers. In contrast, Google Search sends readers from Australia and all over the world to the publishers’ sites for free [Silva’s italics] – helping them to generate advertising revenues from those audiences and convert them into paying subscribers.”
The original Google blog post is at this link for now.
The write up noted:
Guardian Australia revealed last week that negotiations for the voluntary code had stalled over three main factors: the media’s access to data and notice of ranking changes, and stonewalling by Google and Facebook on payment for content.
The issue is that old school publishers have watched their world change. Google wanted to index information and really was not keen on paying for that action.
Due to the regulatory environment which allowed Google to do what it wanted for the last 20 plus years, it is clear that Google has the upper hand.
Australia wants money to keep its “old school” news businesses alive. Google doesn’t want to pay; Google’s business model is predicated on giving indexed information away in order to attract advertisers who want their message displayed when a person searches for something.
The model has worked well. Maybe it is not the integrated, diversified money machine that the Bezos bulldozer has rolled out, but Google does produce revenue, certainly more than “real” news outfits.
Google, in an alternate reality, might license the right to index “real” news, display ads when those results are displayed, and share — yes, share on an equitable basis — the revenue the Google system generates from the content.
Sure, and pigs can fly.
Google is doing some word painting. But this time, maybe the company is putting its Googley head in its sticky marsupial pouch. There Google can tell itself and others that its indexing of news content is just like a poster in a store front’s window.
But Google, with some help from Amazon, has put most of the store fronts out of business. Facebook is keeping people occupied with its social service.
Google is just providing a service. For free too. Plus, Google doesn’t sell ads on the Google News service. Is the reason that Google could not figure out how to do this without igniting yet another firestorm over its approach which is reminiscent of the activity described in “The Destruction of Sennacherib.” Instead of wolves, Google is going after publishing wallabies, creatures ill equipped to deal with the digital war machine:
For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed;
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill,
And their hearts but once heaved, and for ever grew still!
Will the legal eagles in Australia buy the Google argument? Will a regulator explain that consuming news wallabies is prohibited? Will Australia set a precedent for others in the Five Eyes’ group? Will Google’s lawyers prevail at a time when no one really seems to care about the business practices of de facto US monopolies?
DarkCyber is not certain. Google has been masterful is slipping away from problems. But the argument that Google is the digital equivalent of an A4 printed posted taped to a window of an increasingly rare newsstand is remarkable.
Does Google have its head in its pouch? This is indeed possible. Google does not want to recognize that the attitude toward the fun and cheerful company has changed.
Why not ask Amanda Rosenberg? She may have some insight into metaphorical arguments offered by the Google.
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2020
The Cost of High School Science Club and Its Management Method
May 6, 2020
I read in Forbes, the capitalist tool, “Google’s Top Quantum Scientist Explains In Detail Why He Resigned.” The write up is an interview with a a high profile expert in quantum computing. His name? Dr. John Marinis. The interview contains a number of interesting factoids plus some PR, but that’s the norm today.
DarkCyber noted this statement by the former Googler:
I think it was hard on people in the group to focus on quantum supremacy because it meant they couldn’t work on other things they wanted to do, and most importantly, we could fail. And it seems tension comes with focus.
I use the phrase “high school science club management method” to describe how a group of young men and women who are usually exceptional in math and science behave in a club formed and run by themselves. There may be an adviser, but that person is in my experience a former member of a high school science club.
The club is insular, operates with considerable freedom because other people are “stupid,” “don’t get it,” or are “wasting time on silly things.”
Google has become one of the foremost proponents of the HSSCMM, and the efforts of the Google CFO attest to the difficulty of reigning in the spending in a science club management environment.
Observations:
- The quote from the quantum expert underscores Google’s inability to tolerate focus.
- IBM (a content marketing fog machine) and Google found themselves squabbling about quantum supremacy.
- The HSSCMM essentially forced a focused and talented wizard to quit.
Net net: Google’s management method generates revenue but if the cost is a loss of talented specialists, what’s that say about the efficacy of the high school approach?
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2020
Google Recommendations: A Digital Jail Cell?
May 5, 2020
A team of researchers in at the Centre Marc Bloch in Berlin have closely studied filter bubbles (scientifically called “confinement”) on YouTube. While the phenomenon of filter bubbles across the Web has been a topic of study for several years, scientists Camille Roth, Antoine Mazieres, and Telmo Menezes felt the role of the recommendation algorithm on YouTube had been under-examined. In performing research to plug this gap, they found the dominant video site may produce the most confining bubbles of all. The team shares their main results in “Tubes and Bubbles: Topological Confinement of Recommendations on YouTube.” They summarize:
“Contrarily to popular belief about so-called ‘filter bubbles’, several recent studies show that recommendation algorithms generally do not contribute much, if at all, to user confinement; in some cases, they even seem to increase serendipity [see e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]. Our study demonstrates however that this may not be the case on YouTube: be it in topological, topical or temporal terms, we show that the landscape defined by non-personalized YouTube recommendations is generally likely to confine users in homogeneous clusters of videos. Besides, content for which confinement appears to be most significant also happens to garner the highest audience and thus plausibly viewing time.”
The abstract to the team’s paper on the study describes their approach:
“Starting from a diverse number of seed videos, we first describe the properties of the sets of suggested videos in order to design a sound exploration protocol able to capture latent recommendation graphs recursively induced by these suggestions. These graphs form the background of potential user navigations along non-personalized recommendations. From there, be it in topological, topical or temporal terms, we show that the landscape of what we call mean-field YouTube recommendations is often prone to confinement dynamics.”
To read about the study in great, scientific detail, complete with illustrations, turn to the full paper published at the PLOS ONE peer-reviewed journal site. Established in 2012, The Centre Marc Bloch’s Computational Social Science Team enlists social scientists alongside computer scientists and modelers to study the social dynamics of today’s digital landscapes. If you are curious what that means, exactly, their page includes an interesting five-minute video describing their work.
Cynthia Murrell, May 5, 2020
SEO: Let Us Hustle, Everyone
May 4, 2020
I was horrified in 2013 when I read “Google Semantic Search: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Techniques That Get Your Company More Traffic, Increase Brand Impact, and Amplify Your Online Presence.” I assume Ramanathan Guha, one of the semantic sparkplugs, may have to breathe deeply and do Zen things when he ponders how his semantic inventions have been applied.
One idea for “semantic” was to deal with ambiguity and provide improved recall for Web content. I am not to thrash around in the Semantic Web kiddy pool with over inflated natural language processing methods, the sprites of SPARQL, and Watson-esque methods that can figure out “meaning” in human utterances. No, no.
I want to point out that crazy suggestions for fooling Google’s bastardized relevance methods into presenting a user with increasingly less and less relevant information. Here’s an example: A query for “Peruvian Machu Picchu stone masonry.” Pretty specific. Here’s what the GOOG delivers:
The top hit is from a travel agency. Number two is a Wikipedia article. Number three is a collection of pictures.
I don’t know about you, but I am not confident in a travel agency’s take on Mesolithic quarrying. The Wikipedia entry raises the question, “Says who?” And the pictures. I don’t need pictures, I need data about quarrying: Where, chemical composition of stone, tools, etc.
But that’s the search engine optimization world at work. Travel agencies are experts because they put a word in their sales material. Notice that the wondrous Google ad matching algorithm did NOT generate explicit travel advertisements. This begs the question, “What’s the problem, Google smart software ad matching thing?”
The goal of search engine optimization is to outfox an increasingly mixed up Google and the clueless user who wants information on a specific topic; for example, Peruvian Machu Picchu stone masonry,” NOT a pitch for a tours. The sacred valley gateway to Machu Picchu becomes under ham fisted SEO manipulations, the Valley of Tricked Customers, populated with users wondering, “I meant masonry information, not a tour.”
Let’s put David Amerland and his ilk aside. At least, the almost respectable SEO bilkadoodles (a cross between a street savvy fox and pink miniature poodle) write books and contribute to Search Engine Journal, one of the advocates of helping Google display unrelated content.
No, let’s take a quick look at an outfit which is a breed of interest to SEO veterinarians: Woobound.com.
Woobound.com came across my lidar when I received this email on Friday, May 1, 2020. Note that the text is unedited:
Hi ,
My name is Christian from Woobound, Helping you get through remote work challenges!I’ve been looking up content related to Seo, Digital Marketing & Lead Generation for Finance topic and noticed that you published one on your site http://arnoldit.com/wordpress/2016/04/06/nasdaq-joins-the-party-for-investing-in-intelligence/
I liked what I have read so far, and I think we can agree on all your points. In fact, we have written and published similar content on the same topic which also touches on some of the Seo, Digital Marketing & Lead Generation for Finance tips/topics featured in your article.
We thought your readers might find it as a useful resource, and you can find it here: https://woobound.com/seo-financial-advisor/
Think it would make a nice addition to your page? I’m also keen to know your feedback or thoughts on our writing as well.We also have a blog manukakitchen.com and we’re happy to give you a link in return.
Keep up the great work at arnoldit.com and stay safe
Best
Christian
I noted several issues which this spam email poked in my face:
- The email is signed Christian, but the email address is for jeffrey@woobound.com. A fake name is a flashing yellow light.
The warning light is now pulsing. - The Christian Arriola / Jeffrey entity is following what is a trend in getting useless content in order to pump up a loser blog. (I receive these “please, take my content and link to me” requests frequently. As I was assembling this post, an entity called andreea.sauciuc@cognitiveseo.com begged me to respond to her earlier requests for me to talk to her. No, doesn’t work with these thoughtless, clueless individuals.) The Christian Jeffrey entity called my attention to a story from 2016 about finance, and it seems to Christian Jeffrey that a story related to “seo-financial-advisor” and Manuka Kitchen. The entities are either stupid humans or stupid software bots. The common denominator is “stupid.”
- The Christian Arriola / Jeffrey entity is confident that the entity and I agree. Wrong. The fake praise is even more obtuse than the links to subjects of zero interest to me and the DarkCyber team. What’s most inept? Assuming that I am going to agree with this Christian Arriola / Jeffrey or that I will craft a five star review of the Amerland SEO book?
What’s up with this Christian Arriola / Jeffrey entity, please?
Curious I did some checking of open source content. What do you know? The Christian Arriola / Jeffrey reinvented himself in 2018. Here’s a before behavioral modification in the food aisle and the fashion forward Christian Arriola / Jeffrey of the here and now. The image comes from Facebook. Of course, this Christian possibly named Arriola is a Facebooker and an Instagramer to boot:
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The “less pizza” diet seems to have had zero impact on the fashion sense of the entity Christian Jeffrey. You can check out the girl friends (numerous), the dog, the favorite cities, and the entity’s most loved pizza restaurants at this link.
A little more exploration revealed a cornucopia of search engine optimization rubbish presented in a series of YouTube videos. You can experience these discharges (effluent, not prison) by clicking on this image:
The Christian Jeffrey program does not present the name of the top hustler who operates the program.
Compared to the Poland China output in the Amerland book, the content in these videos might challenge a trippe of hungry pygmy goats.
Let’s look at an example:
The image is similar to those my team has reviewed as part of our work for a tribunal focused on human trafficking and child sex crime.
The program is part of the “show” — now mercifully discontinued — called The Hustle. This particular video features images of hot flames, a visage with what seems to be a Hustle smirk, a VW sedan, footage in a bar, and includes the statement “My life is proving my mom and dad wrong.”
With some trepidation, I asked some of my team to “watch” videos prepared by the Christian Arriola / Jeffrey entity.
Here’s the scorecard I received for three of the eight videos my team viewed. Please, note that each person watched two videos because as one of the DarkCyber team said, “I can’t stand this vlogger and the content. Two’s the limit for me.” I listen, so I said, “Okay, team two shows.”
Programs were rated on a scale of one to 10. One is an F or failure; 10 is a great program with solid content. Here we go:
Show 1: How to Be a Podcaster. Score: 2. Comment: Mostly correct but geared to a person who cannot read. On the Hustle Web site, the link to this program and the free series of which it is allegedly a part does not resolve. Dead links are not what SEO experts report as helpful.
Show 2: Best Keywords for Massage Therapist. Score 1. Comment: Distasteful subject. Seems like a way to build traffic for in call and outcall prostitution services.
Show 3: Make Money with SEMrush. Score 1. Comment: Superficial. Seems to suggest that anyone — even a person with zero education and a questionable reputation — can become a search engine optimization expert.
DarkCyber provided the Christian Arriola / Jeffrey entity with some questions, a routine part of our data collection process. Here are the questions Christian Jeffrey declined to answer:
Would you be kind enough to explain the use of dual names?
One of the team took a gander at the LinkedIn profile associated with one of the names the “Hustle” expert used in his communications to me. Here’s what one of the DarkCyber team learned:
- One job at the present time: “Associate Director of SEO” for Nexstar Digital. This is a full time position. Engaged for one year.
- Another job at the present time: “Search Engine Optimization SEO Consultant”. Engaged for nine years.
- A third job at the present time: Podcast Host and content marketing strategy. Engaged for three years. Note that the video podcast went into what seems to be permanent hiatus “one year ago.”
- Education: Five years to get a BA degree in “business administration, marketing, and computer information systems.”
- An entity named Carlos Rosado said, “One of the most complete SEO managers I have ever worked with.”
- Christian Jeffrey is interested in AT&T and the Hotel Group, among others.
The DarkCyber team member’s opinion based on viewing the Hustle programs and the LinkedIn profile:
The fact that the person Christian Arriola / Jeffrey uses one name for LinkedIn and omits his name from the “Hustle” podcast raises red flags. Also, the information presented in the LinkedIn biography makes clear that this individual presents three “jobs” of which two are his own endeavors. This is another warning light. Multiple gigs are understandable today, but to list one’s own projects as full time jobs leads me to believe that this individual is one with a bit of professional fluidity or “stretch.”
Net Net: SEO is a discipline which plays a cat-and-mouse game with Google. Making a Web page appear when the content of that Web page is not germane to the user’s query is in some ways beyond marketing. The practice edges into intellectual dishonesty. Maybe the behavior is not in the same class as illegal weapons dealing, contraband, human trafficking, and child sex crime? But the facts presented in open source support these conclusions:
- SEO practitioners do shade or shape what Google displays.
- Individual practitioners may embrace methods associated with criminal behavior; that is, the use of aliases in a professional setting like LinkedIn and email to entities like ArnoldIT.
- The expertise required to deliver for fee SEO services may depend on the use of questionable software tools developed by other SEO “experts” and may not work. (Alexa Ranking reports that the Woobound.com site ranks at 7,313,183. DarkCyber finds it peculiar that an SEO expert cannot generate traffic or YouTube views for that matter.)
If you have to decide between the Amerland book’s advice and the “expertise” peddled by Christian Arriola / Jeffrey, look further. You’ll probably save time and money and avoid the “hustle.”
Stephen E Arnold, May 4, 2020
Schmidt Versus Thiel May Be a Proxy for Google Trying Catch Up with Palantir
May 3, 2020
You will need to read the very, very long PR fest in the New York Times. I won’t do much with this story, so you will have to find the dead tree edition or pay to play to read “I Could Solve Most of Your Problems: Eric Schmidt’s Pentagon Offensive.” Yeah, hubris.
The headline does the job. But what’s with the PR push from the former CEO of Novell and then a similar job at Google.
But Google fired the Department of Defense. The current administration left Mr. Schmidt in his committee roles as the administration of Mr. Trump raced forward. Who accompanied him on his technology sprint? The Google, nope. The driver of the Bezos bulldozer? Not a chance.
Who then? Peter Thiel, the high profile Silicon Valley whiz, investor in Palantir Technologies and, probably as interesting, Anduril, a forward-leaning outfit engaged in primary data capture and action-oriented outputs for operators. Anduril, you say? Yes, I say.
Several items to keep in mind as this story wends its way through the pundit-verse:
- Mr. Trump is president, and he seems comfortable with the Palantir Technologies’ solutions
- Mr. Trump seems okay with Mr. Thiel
- Google dumped Maven and has been Googley in numerous US government endeavors. (This is nothing new because the behavior surfaced in the early days of the Mountain View tornado. Remember the objection regarding the FirstGov.gov contract award? Remember Mr. Brin’s wearing sparkly sneakers and a sporty T shirt to meetings with elected officials?)
Net net: Big PR coup and “real news” from the New York Times. The reality is that the the “real news” story is about Googler and the Google appear to be trying to regain traction—Traction lost with certain interesting behaviors. The problem is that the road to the White House has been subjected to abuse by the dozer tracks of other companies trying to reach the Valhalla of big money, multi year contracts. Googzilla my struggle for purchase where it counts. The NYT’s “real news” story may not be what Mr. Schmidt needs.
Stephen E Arnold, May 3, 2020
Google Feature Will Identify Failure
May 3, 2020
Google Search can admit its search results are not always perfect. The Verge reports on the platform’s new feature in, “Google Will Tell You When it Thinks its Search Results Aren’t Good.” Writer Chaim Gartenberg explains:
“‘It looks like there aren’t any great matches for your search,’ the message reads, before prompting users with suggestions that may help get better results, along with other related searches to try. … Sometimes, the company admits, the results that Google comes up with just aren’t particularly helpful. Even in the nearly infinite chasms of the internet, some searches just don’t have good results. Google says that the feature shouldn’t show up too often — after all, the idea is that Google search will produce good results that help you with what you’re looking for. But the feature should be a useful addition. Sometimes, knowing that an answer isn’t out there can be almost as helpful as finding the answer in the first place.”
It is hard to imagine a query that would turn up no relevant results these days. I tried to produce one to test out this feature and failed. I shall take them at their word. Perhaps you, dear reader, can find a phrase to trigger the message.
Cynthia Murrell, May 3, 2020
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