The Truth about Google Results for White American Doctor

The hot topic this week is the Google search results. It revolves around the images you will see when you search for White American Doctor. When you type this, you might be anticipating seeing images of a White American Doctor or rather a Caucasian. However, what you get to see are images of Afro-American Doctors. Difficult to understand- why? Yes, it is indeed confusing and difficult to understand why you get to see those images. Before we dive deep into this issue, let us consider how Google search results work.

Google search Algorithm- How it works

The web has loads of information, and it would be difficult for you to sort through all of them to get the information you might want. Therefore, the google ranking system focuses on ranking the web pages. It sorts through billions of web pages and finds the most relevant result. You will get it in a fraction of a second.  

Most of the time, you will get what you are looking for. That is how you get content and images when you type White American Doctor on the screen.

Algorithms- the backbone of a ranking system

The ranking system mentioned above involves a series of algorithms. An algorithm refers to a set of rules employed for problem-solving. Therefore the algorithm for Google search rankings includes many aspects such as the words in the query, relevance, usability of pages, location, etc. however, each of these factors may vary from one search ranking to another. It is dependent on a rigorous process of live tests and reports of search quality raters across the globe. However, the accuracy of the results is possible only when the intent behind your query is right.

The” White American Doctor “Google search 

When you type White American doctor in Google search, you will be surprised or even shocked to note that images of Black Doctors will pop up on the screen. You might wonder whether you typed it wrong. You might also wonder if there are no white doctors in your neighbourhood. However, the result you will be getting is the same from whichever location you type. This might indeed confuse you and make you wonder what could be the reason for such a blatant error.

The reasons for the error

 The reasons that the people who are aware of technology would think of include

• Google search is prey to hackers. That is why it is showing opposite results when you type White American Doctor.
• It is a conspiracy
• Is Google giving importance to African Americans? Is it racist?

The search result for White American Doctor went viral after a tweet from a person. He turned his attention towards the wrong images on google posts. Later, it was searched extensively by many others, and it was confirmed.

Follow up

Apart from this news becoming viral, there were other inputs too. It showed a search using the term White American, showing images of Afro-American people only. It is irrespective of the profession you search for. Also, there was one case sometime back when the search was for Bostons’ black neighborhoods, and the results were Bostons’ Worst neighborhoods. So, why do these mistakes happen? According to Google, it is because of the users’ inputs. Let us consider this in detail.

Decoding the mistake in the search result

According to Danny Sullivan, public liaison, the google results page is strong on keywords. However, it will scan all the information, and it will come up with one featured snippet as the first result. This featured snip, however, was highly dependent on the feedback from the users. The mistakes, however, will be constantly rectified by Google.

 Now let us consider the search result for White American doctors. When pictures of Caucasian doctors get posted, the race is not specified. However, in the case of Afro-American doctors, the term white gets mentioned. That is why the wrong images pop up as search results. An analysis of the coding pattern after the search result went viral revealed the same. It is to make the content and image SEO friendly. However, the results were wrong.

The explanation

Google works with the different queries that you post and the responses given by the content writers for the same. As a Google user, you do not post your images with the right wordings; it is likely to lead to confusion like this. Therefore, Lillian claims that it is not a deliberate action by Google, and neither is it favoring the Afro-American race.

Therefore, you may safely conclude that Google search has not been hacked. Also, it does not favour a particular race or so. There is and will be no conspiracy involved, and you can trust Google to rectify the issue soon.