News   /   Google’s next plan? Search results based on facts

What we are currently finding on the internet might not be as accurate as one might think. In fact the more links a website has pointing to it, it will increase its ranking on search engines. However according to a paper recently published by a team from Google itself, this practice might actually stop. Google new dream? Ranking of web pages according to the accuracy of their data.

According to a report recently published by New Scientist, this group of researchers are working on a new concept named Knowledge-Based Trust (KBT). Quoting directly the paper written by the team, they are arguing that:

“The quality of web sources has been traditionally evaluated using exogenous signals such as the hyperlink structure of the graph. We propose a new approach that relies on endogenous signals, namely, the correctness of factual information provided by the source. A source that has few false facts is considered to be trustworthy.”

Going more in-depth, the paper explains that Google might start to process data existing on websites by comparing it to data previously stored in a  knowledge base. Those websites which seem to feature more accurate data will be rewarded by gaining higher ranking over the other portals. Keep in mind that in 2012 Google launched its Knowledge Graph – a database of facts, which they are currently using to test this new ranking mechanism.

Could it be the case that the internet might actually be cleaned of all redundant data, or is it just make-believe?

Sources

Google wants to rank websites based on facts not links by Hal Hodson. Accessed from http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530102.600-google-wants-to-rank-websites-based-on-facts-not-links.html#.VQE6747Dv8p on the 112th of March, 2015.

Knowledge-Based Trust: Estimating the Trustworthiness of Web Sources by Xin Luna Dong, Evgeniy Gabrilovich, Kevin Murphy, Van Dang Wilko Horn, Camillo Lugaresi, Shaohua Sun, Wei Zhang. Accessed from http://arxiv.org/pdf/1502.03519v1.pdf on the 12th of March, 2015.