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Perhaps the most innovative contribution Google has made to internet searching is it's '''PageRank''' algorithm. This system works by counting the number of sites that link to another site; the more links pointing to a page, the higher that page will be ranked. The engine also takes note of how often the page is updated. Due to this, [[Wikipedia]] is consistently ranked very highly by Google, due to it's constant updating and heavy linkage. More recently, internet-savvy Googlers have discovered ways to game the system; creating massive numbers of pages with links pointing to one page form what is known as a "Google Bomb". Some examples can be found below.

Perhaps the most innovative contribution Google has made to internet searching is it's '''PageRank''' algorithm. This system works by counting the number of sites that link to another site; the more links pointing to a page, the higher that page will be ranked. The engine also takes note of how often the page is updated. Due to this, [[Wikipedia]] is consistently ranked very highly by Google, due to it's constant updating and heavy linkage. More recently, internet-savvy Googlers have discovered ways to game the system; creating massive numbers of pages with links pointing to one page form what is known as a "Google Bomb". Some examples can be found below.

==="Miserable Failure" Incident===

 

For nearly two years, searching "Miserable Failure" in the Google search engine would return the [http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/biography.html White House Biography] of [[George W. Bush]].<ref>[http://boingboing.net/2007/01/26/bush_no_longer_miser.html Bush no longer "miserable failure": Google tackles googlebombs]</ref> Many ideas have been debated, though this was most likely due to the regular use of the PageRank system. Due to this incident (the biography remained the top result for over two years), Google has been accused (baselessly) of having a [[liberal]] bias.

===Liberal bias===

Google has been accused of [[liberal]] bias; for several years, searching for phrase "miserable failure" returned the biography page of [[George W. Bush]]<ref>http://boingboing.net/2007/01/26/bush_no_longer_miser.html</ref> due to an exploit of its search algorithm, and it consistently includes links to the liberally-biased [[Wikipedia]] on its first page of results. A reason for this is that its search algorithm gives a higher rank to sites which are linked to by many other sites; the interconnected nature of the Wiki model necessarily improves the ranking of Wikipedia pages..

== References ==

== References ==