Google Has Picked an Answer for You—Too Bad It’s Often Wrong

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Google became the world’s go-to source of information by ranking billions of links from millions of sources. Now, for many queries, the company is presenting itself as the authority on truth by promoting a single search result as the answer. The promoted answers, called featured snippets, are outlined in boxes above other results and presented in larger type, often with images. Google’s voice assistant sometimes reads them aloud. They give Google’s secret algorithms even greater power to shape public opinion, given that surveys show people consider search engines their most-trusted source of information, over traditional media or social media.Google typically lists the source below the answer—or credits the source first when reading an answer aloud—but not always. 


Google Has Picked an Answer for You—Too Bad It’s Often Wrong