Website search ranking disorder: high ranked people get bogus information
Early review: May 19, new media version of Overflow of Network Charging Information; On June 2, the new media version of "The contents of online encyclopedia are miscellaneous"; On June 16, the new media version of Serious Homogeneity of Network Content.
Search ranking, the higher the price; Search platform, lack of check; Search for information, false disaster; The search path is full of pitfalls.
Website search is the "navigator" of the information age, which should provide the public with objective, fair and authoritative information. However, the "barbaric growth" of search chaos has increasingly violated public rights and seriously damaged the network ecology, which is deeply criticized.
On June 25, the National Cyberspace Office issued the Regulations on the Administration of Internet Information Search Services, which provides legal management for Internet search services, sets a red line for enterprise behavior, and search chaos such as competitive ranking is expected to be effectively standardized. The comprehensive rectification of search services caused by competitive ranking deserves continuous attention.
Overflow of advertisements, commercial rent-seeking
Profit model is trapped in the vortex of bidding
In January this year, the 37th Statistical Report on the Development of Internet in China released by China Internet Network Information Center showed that in 2015, the utilization rate of enterprises' marketing promotion through search engines reached 47.4%. During this period, some search engine companies blindly pursued interests and promoted competitive rankings, which led to information distortion under the flood of advertisements, Even caused illegal websites to be unblocked.
At present, the entrepreneurship of college students is in full swing. The marketing departments of some search engines aim at this group and take the initiative to launch competitive promotion. Yin, a senior at the University of International Business and Economics, launched a social application last year. Shortly after the company registered, she received a phone call from a search company. The other party claimed that the ranking of new products in user search results could be improved by paying a certain fee. Over the next month, she received seven or eight such calls. Driven by interests, some search engine companies take the initiative to seek commercial rent-seeking everywhere.
Not only that, some search giants lack strict identification of the qualifications of businesses and let them put on the market, leading some unscrupulous businesses to take advantage of opportunities and imitate regular businesses to create fake websites. If the "twins" website is not carefully identified, netizens can easily fall into the trap set by bad businesses.
At the beginning of June this year, in the early days of the opening of Shanghai Disneyland, "Shanghai Disneyland Hotel" was searched on three well-known search platforms, and the official website ranked behind four "commercial promotion" messages. A fake "Shanghai Disney Hotel" website ranked high, attracting consumers' attention and defrauding users' personal information and credit card numbers. Until the event was exposed, the website was offline blocked by the search platform, and now cannot be opened.
In fact, there are numerous similar cases. Only when these problems of search engines are noticed by the public and followed up by the media can they be corrected. This kind of supervision is unavoidable. Some netizens questioned whether the review of search engines should be undertaken by ordinary users?
At present, there are many netizens who do not understand the rules of search engine bidding ranking. They easily trust the top ranked websites and think they are popular and trustworthy. As a result, they accidentally stumble, even their lives and health are threatened.
The situation of information distortion and mixed advertising brought about by competitive search also made teachers and students in the school complain incessantly. Teachers and students said that it is difficult to find the information they want on the Internet now, and a large number of advertisements will appear when searching for terms related to business, but they can only find another way to broaden knowledge channels with microblog and WeChat. When the channels for acquiring knowledge through search engines are crowded by unregulated advertisements, the practicability and reliability of Internet space are greatly reduced due to the erosion of monetary interests.
Hot word subscription ranking sale
It's impossible to defend against a variety of tricks
As a "revenue tool", competitive ranking is not only pervasive in comprehensive search, but also used by operators in vertical search. According to the survey, each major e-commerce platform has its own bidding promotion services, such as vertical service industries such as real estate, takeaway, recruitment, etc., which have a variety of playing methods such as special member topping, information headlines, keyword bidding, etc. The tentacles of search bidding have been extended to all aspects of life, and various means are beyond defense.
For consumers with clear needs, quick and direct search on the website is undoubtedly the first choice. All kinds of e-commerce platforms are even more dedicated to this simple function and do their best in marketing. The reporter learned from the official marketing tool of Taobao, "Taobao Express", that there are many bidding promotions covering "hot search words", "associative words", "keywords" and other aspects just around search. When buyers search for product information, the information of bidding merchants will be ranked in the top few, and occupy users' attention at the first time.
"Sydney", a Taobao shopkeeper who manages creative jewelry, told reporters that "a crown seller's ranking fee alone will cost hundreds every day. If a novice doesn't spend money on promotion, the buyer can't find you at all". The competitive ranking makes it more and more difficult for small businesses to get customers on Taobao. Some businesses have paid high promotion fees, which virtually increases the cost of goods and have to raise prices to sell them; Some businesses are "squeezed" out of the search scope because they cannot afford the promotion fees; Others, in order to pursue lower promotion costs, have gone the wrong way of using the third party to swipe the list and order.
Daily food search is also threatened by competitive ranking. The operator of a restaurant in Chaoyang District, Beijing, told reporters that they need to spend a lot of money every day to "snap up" certain ranking seats on a takeout platform, such as the fifth, tenth and fifteenth places, to attract customers. Due to this "reciprocal relationship", the person in charge of the take away platform seldom performs his/her responsibility to supervise the physical stores.
The problem caused by the proliferation of bidding rankings is particularly serious on online recruitment platforms. According to the monitoring data of Analysys Think Tank, the size of China's Internet recruitment market will reach 4.61 billion yuan in 2016, an increase of 18.8% over last year. At the same time, the number of fraud cases using websites to publish false recruitment information is also increasing. Since February this year, the National Cyberspace Office, together with relevant departments, has carried out the special rectification action of "serious violations and dishonesty of recruitment websites". Two batches of more than 200 recruitment websites have been investigated and closed.
On the classified information networks such as 58 cities and Ganji, professional keywords, gold booths, top refinements and integrity logos can be sold through competitive bidding, giving false information an opportunity. In addition, the audit of relevant network platforms is not in place, making many "black job referral" parasitic among them, even "top". Under the encirclement of many confusing bidding methods, job seekers will fall into the "tiger's mouth" if they are indiscreet, and will be cheated of money by various ingenious deposits, training fees, etc.
Strengthen rectification and standardize order
Adjustment of rules to be tested by netizens
After the Wei Zexi incident, the survey results jointly released by the Office of Cyberspace Affairs, the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, the Health and Family Planning Commission and other departments showed that Baidu's bidding ranking mechanism had problems such as excessive weight of paid bidding and unclear commercial promotion logo, which must be rectified immediately.
After nearly two months, what kind of answer did Baidu hand in? According to public data, Baidu has adjusted the rules of paid search, established a ranking mechanism based on credibility, offline 2518 medical institutions with unqualified qualifications, 126 million pieces of medical information, and set up a filter library of risk words in this rectification. The reporter tried to search with keywords such as "cancer" and "diabetes", but no promotional information appeared; Enter "cold", "fever" and other common symptoms, and the light blue "commercial promotion" words on the bottom of the ads still exist, but the number displayed on each page is reduced to 4, accompanied by a buoy risk prompt. Under the trend of comprehensive rectification, search engines such as Sogou and 360 are also optimizing and adjusting synchronously to reduce the number of search promotions.
Under the public opinion, the competitive rankings of major search platforms have slammed the brakes on the medical and health product industries, and illegal advertising has been effectively controlled. However, in other fields, commercial infringement caused by keyword advertising still exists in part.
According to the latest Regulations on the Administration of Internet Information Search Services issued by the Office of Cyberspace Affairs, "information search service providers should actively accept public supervision, timely handle public complaints and reports, and bear the liability for damages to users' rights and interests according to law".
Experts believe that whether it can balance revenue and reputation, whether it can proceed from the perspective of users, whether it can stick to the business bottom line, and whether it can bear the responsibility of gatekeeping are the keys to guide competitive ranking towards orderly, standardized and benign development.
