Googlearchy: Search Engine Politics

In chapters three and four of his book, The Myth of Digital Democracy, author Matthew Hindman discusses politics in relation to search engines. Although these search engines (Google and Yahoo!) use different special algorithm machines, they still produce overlapping results. In these chapters, he also tries to answer questions about political websites and  the amount of internet traffic they receive in relation to search engines.  How do political websites fare on the World Wide Web? How do individuals access political sites? Which sites receive the most traffic? Do search engines play a role in which sites are more prominent? He attempts to answer these questions by analyzing the data on twelve lists of highly ranked "seed" sites of the political variety, using six different "general politics" categories.

These questions are difficult to answer, and search engines play favorites. In chapter three, Hindman talks about "Googlearchy." Googlearchy is referred to as the rule of the most heavily linked. This theory provides three main claims. First, Googlearchy suggests that the number of links pointing to a website is the most important determinant of site visibility. In other words, the more inbound links to your website,  the easier your website should be to find. Second, Googlearchy indicates that niche dominance should be a general rule of online life. For all defined groups of websites, there should be a small portion of that group that receives the most links and traffic. Third, Googlearchy suggests that this dependence on links should make niche dominance self-perpetuating. Sites that have more links should prosper with more traffic that help improve the site overall. Based on these claims, it can be seen that Googlearchy favors popular well-known websites that receive lots of traffic. Users then proceed to find information via these websites. Since there are very few popular websites that receive great amounts of traffic, Google's googlearchy is "narrowcasting" users' content. This is especially evident in regards to political websites.

In chapter four, Hindman talks about general internet traffic and how political websites fare in the World Wide Web. He attempts to answer how users end up at political websites through search engines. In his cited research, he states that many users lack the sophistication needed to use search engines, especially in regards to finding information about politics. Based on the research compiled by Hitwise Competitive Intelligence, traffic data shows that political websites do not rank high in reception of internet traffic. They only account for 0.12% while 2.9% go to news and media sites. He also states that the age of internet users vary greatly, with users ages 18-34 dominating the web, and rarely browsing political sites, while users ages 50 and older predominantly browse political and news websites. Hindman concludes that the reason why political websites are lacking traffic is because of more traditional media. People still are more likely to follow politics on traditional forms of media than the internet, especially looking at the different age groups.