Online Research Using Google: Does SEO and High Page Rank Equal Better Information?

I’m a scientist and I love Google for research! Ever since it supplanted the other search engines several years back with its ability to find exactly the types of information being sought, I was a convert. Getting the information you need is so straightforward. Millions of pages perfectly ranked in seconds, it’s all right there.

Although I’ve written many dozens of scientific papers of one form or another that are available on the web, I’ve only recently taken the plunge and starting writing articles specifically for the internet. It’s amazing how little I knew when I started (and how little I still know) about the single most important factor in writing for the web: SEO (search engine optimization). You see, in Google (and other search engines), it’s all about the page rank. If you’re not on the first (or second, third) page of results, you might as well forget about it, no one is going to read your stuff. There are millions (literally) of articles written about how to improve your SEO, create links and back-links, use social media, and other ways to improve your page rank. Much of the time, this seems more important to the authors than the actual content of the article (but this is by no means universal).

A majority of internet writers use SEO to sell products and/or get readers. Discussing the latest gossip about celebrities, the best smart phones, or great recipes. Nothing wrong with using SEO to get high page rankings and readers to your site to make a few bucks or to get them to read your daily musings in a blog. However, page rank and SEO can be really complicated when doing research. Whether it be research for a school project, research about home improvements, research about vacations, children’s ailments, or even academic research about scientific or social problems.

Doing research today is very different than it was even 20 years ago. Google is usually the first place most of us go when they get started on a research project. But, how do you sort through those millions of pages to get the information you need? And, more importantly, how do you discern the quality of the information you’re finding as you develop your own thoughts and advances on the research you’ve found?

Here’s a quick example: The other day, I was doing some research on when babies could start eating eggs. In 0.9 seconds, I had 4,230,000 results at my finger-tips. However, even a quick perusal of the highly sought after first 5 entries showed that there was an important discrepancy. Most pediatricians tell new parents to avoid feeding egg whites to babies until they’re at least a year old because they have high allergenic properties. However, sometime around 2008 an important study came out showing that the risks of allergic reactions are minimal and eggs are actually fine for babies after about 6 months e (unless there’s a family history of egg allergies). Some of the websites in my Google search were made before 2008, and they said avoid egg whites. Others were more recent, had more up-to-date information, but were lower in the search. In fact, this is explicitly part of Google’s search algorithm. Older articles often have more links and back-links, are more interconnected throughout the web, and are thus more authoritative according to Google. It’s a bit scary to think about what the world might be like if the medical sciences used the same sort of procedures—history and popularity—for deciding which treatments were best.

In science, studies are reviewed by other scientists before they can be published, and subject to scrutiny after they are published. Good research rises and bad research falls in popularity, and the field progresses. However, this is not always the case in a Google search, as the case I discussed above illustrates. Bad information can perpetuate and even rise above more recent information if other people are reading it and linking to it, and the author is good at SEO. Sure, Google is consistently working towards better and better algorithms for ranking sites, but history, good SEO and popularity, are always going to get you high ranks even if the content is less reputable and/or does not pass through scientific scrutiny.

In science, there are many examples of fields where the scientific consensus does not match well with a Google search. Three well-known examples are:

1) Climate change. There is certainly a small amount of controversy and still a long way to go in understanding how humans are altering the global climate. A Google search on Climate Change brings up many dissenting opinions with high SEO on the first page, implying that the science is very controversial. This is exacerbated in political debates. However, the vast majority of climate scientists (more than 95%) agree that climate change is occurring, and it is due to human activities.

2) Vaccinations. Many people believe that vaccinations of important childhood diseases can be harmful, and point to a potential link to Autism and other defects. However, the recent scientific consensus finds no such links and suggests that campaigns against vaccinations perpetuated by good SEO on the web can actually be quite harmful to children’s health.

3) Evolution. Certainly evolution has long been a controversial topic, but today most churches and religious organizations accept that the main principles of evolutionary biology are real and not inconsistent with their beliefs (even if they do not accept all of the implications). The vast majority of the scientific community takes evolution one of the foremost principles of biology. However, a Google search of ‘Evolution Science’ turns up several anti-evolutionary sites with good SEO on the first page, implying a much deeper controversy among scientists than which really exists.

What’s the solution? Certainly, everyone is entitled to an opinion, and Google searches should find those opinions. However, it is important to remember when doing research on the web that high page rank does not always directly translate into more accepted or reputable information. Doing research in the age of Google—whether it be to find the best Vietnamese restaurant in a new town or to find a cure for cancer—is challenging, but can be highly productive with the proper scrutiny and consideration of the source of the information in addition to its SEO.

Finally, when doing scientific research, Google Scholar can be a great source of the scientific papers being published today (but unfortunately, not all of those papers are available without a subscription).