{"id":40567,"date":"2020-11-05T11:20:43","date_gmt":"2020-11-05T16:20:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/?p=40567"},"modified":"2023-08-19T13:59:33","modified_gmt":"2023-08-19T18:59:33","slug":"is-google-biased","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/is-google-biased\/","title":{"rendered":"I Thought Google Was Biased, But The Data Shows They\u2019re Not"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"intro-txt\">Recently, Google CEO Sundar Pichai was called to testify in front of Congress about potential bias in Google\u2019s algorithms. This isn\u2019t the first time Google has been accused of bias and likely will not be the last time. Google alleges there is no bias, yet many Conservatives argue that Google is biased against them.&nbsp;<\/div>\n<p>With our expert knowledge of <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/seo-basics\/\">search engine optimization (SEO)<\/a>&nbsp;and Ahrefs\u2019 massive amounts of data, we wanted to see if we could identify any bias from Google by looking at data for popular Conservative and Liberal news sites. If you\u2019re not familiar with Ahrefs, we\u2019re one of the top SEO tools with seriously big data about the&nbsp;web.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#methodology\">Methodology<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#results\">Results<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"Methodology\" data-section=\"methodology\">\n<h2>Methodology<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Google makes hundreds of tweaks to its ranking algorithms every year. Most of these go unnoticed because they\u2019re small, but every so often, there\u2019s a big \u2018core\u2019 update that impacts a large percentage of search results. As Google tells us the dates of these updates, we figured we could look for bias by studying organic traffic to well-known Liberal and Conservative news sites before and after these updates.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, here\u2019s the estimated organic search traffic to Fox News since 2015. Each line represents a Google Core Update:<\/p>\n<div style=\"width: 910px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-40576\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/05-is-google-biased.png\" alt width=\"900\" height=\"705\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/05-is-google-biased.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/05-is-google-biased-543x425.png 543w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/05-is-google-biased-768x602.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Google Core Updates overlaid on a traffic graph for Fox&nbsp;News<\/p><\/div>\n<p>However, looking at this data for one website doesn\u2019t tell us much, so we did the same and for the top Conservative and Liberal news sites. We pulled these from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.allsides.com\/media-bias\/media-bias-ratings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">AllSides Media Bias Ratings<\/a>&nbsp;(left and right bias ratings). Here is a list of those websites:<\/p>\n<h3>Conservative news&nbsp;sites:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>New York&nbsp;Post<\/li>\n<li>The Last Refuge<\/li>\n<li>Drudge Report<\/li>\n<li>The Federalist<\/li>\n<li>Orange County Register<\/li>\n<li>The Epoch&nbsp;Times<\/li>\n<li>Washington Times<\/li>\n<li>Christian Broadcasting Network<\/li>\n<li>National Review<\/li>\n<li>Townhall<\/li>\n<li>The Mark Levin&nbsp;Show<\/li>\n<li>The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/li>\n<li>Breitbart<\/li>\n<li>Newsmax<\/li>\n<li>The National Interest<\/li>\n<li>The Gateway Pundit<\/li>\n<li>RedState<\/li>\n<li>PJ Media<\/li>\n<li>Washington Examiner<\/li>\n<li>Fox News<\/li>\n<li>Christian Today<\/li>\n<li>Zero Hedge<\/li>\n<li>The Daily Caller<\/li>\n<li>TheBlaze<\/li>\n<li>The Daily&nbsp;Wire<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Liberal news&nbsp;sites:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Vox<\/li>\n<li>U.S. News &amp; World Report<\/li>\n<li>The Washington Post<\/li>\n<li>CNN<\/li>\n<li>Bustle<\/li>\n<li>NBC News<\/li>\n<li>Hollywood Reporter<\/li>\n<li>Los Angeles Times<\/li>\n<li>Yahoo News<\/li>\n<li>Al Jazeera<\/li>\n<li>Rolling Stone<\/li>\n<li>HuffPost<\/li>\n<li>The Verge<\/li>\n<li>The New York&nbsp;Times<\/li>\n<li>ABC News<\/li>\n<li>TIME<\/li>\n<li>CBS Local<\/li>\n<li>The Guardian<\/li>\n<li>Bloomberg<\/li>\n<li>NPR<\/li>\n<li>CBS News<\/li>\n<li>The Atlantic<\/li>\n<li>Politico<\/li>\n<li>Univision<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Before we get to the results, I should cover a bit about Ahrefs data. We have hundreds of millions of search terms and large amounts of clickstream data. We use this data to estimate organic traffic by looking at all the different queries people search for, the positions that websites occupy in the search results, and where users click. For the Core Updates, we decided to look at traffic at the start of the <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/google-algorithm-updates\">Google Core Updates<\/a> and traffic 14 days later. This is to give Google time to roll out the changes to their different data centers. It also gives us time for our data to reflect the changes.<\/p>\n<p>Our data is normalized in the sense that volumes are averaged over 12 months, so it should account for seasonality mostly, with elections being an exception since they\u2019re not every year. We\u2019re also not going to see newer stories or search topics early on, but we should pick up any popular searches and related clickstream data&nbsp;later.<\/p>\n<div class=\"post-nav-link clearfix\" id=\"section1\"><a class=\"subhead-anchor\" data-tip=\"tooltip__copielink\" rel=\"#section1\"><svg width=\"19\" height=\"19\" viewBox=\"0 0 14 14\" style><g fill=\"none\" fill-rule=\"evenodd\"><path d=\"M0 0h14v14H0z\" \/><path d=\"M7.45 9.887l-1.62 1.621c-.92.92-2.418.92-3.338 0a2.364 2.364 0 0 1 0-3.339l1.62-1.62-1.273-1.272-1.62 1.62a4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.885 5.884l1.62-1.62L7.45 9.886zM5.527 5.135L7.17 3.492c.92-.92 2.418-.92 3.339 0 .92.92.92 2.418 0 3.339L8.866 8.473l1.272 1.273 1.644-1.643A4.161 4.161 0 1 0 5.897 2.22L4.254 3.863l1.272 1.272zm-.66 3.998a.749.749 0 0 1 0-1.06l2.208-2.206a.749.749 0 1 1 1.06 1.06L5.928 9.133a.75.75 0 0 1-1.061 0z\" style \/><\/g><\/svg><\/a><div class=\"link-text\" data-anchor=\"Results\" data-section=\"results\">\n<h2>Results<\/h2>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>From 2015 to the present, we see a decline in average traffic for the top news sites in each category during Google Core Update periods.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conservative total traffic decline: <\/strong>-2.65%<br>\n<strong>Liberal total traffic decline:<\/strong>&nbsp;-1.78%<\/p>\n<p>These numbers are actually very similar and not statistically significant, considering we\u2019re taking into account the traffic of 50 websites and looking at a period of 6 years. Leading up to the last election in 2016, the impact on both categories was roughly equal. Leading up to the 2020 election, if you look at the results from the previous year or so, you\u2019ll see that the impact was roughly equal for both categories, with the most recent update seeming to be better for Conservative websites.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-40577\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/01-is-google-biased.png\" alt width=\"900\" height=\"854\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/01-is-google-biased.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/01-is-google-biased-448x425.png 448w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/01-is-google-biased-768x729.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>If we look at the individual data points, both Conservative and Liberal news sites saw positive and negative impacts during every one of these Google Core Updates. Each box plot below represents the top websites in each category, and I\u2019ll reiterate that every single update had winners and losers for both categories. Typically, whether a site wins or loses in a core update is related more to its quality than anything else.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-40578\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/04-is-google-biased.png\" alt width=\"900\" height=\"844\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/04-is-google-biased.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/04-is-google-biased-453x425.png 453w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/04-is-google-biased-768x720.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>While we can\u2019t conclude from this data that there is no bias in Google search results, we can say that within the last 6 years, we don\u2019t see any new bias introduced during Google Core Updates.<\/p>\n<h3>Is there a traffic bias?<\/h3>\n<p>One of the things that stood out to us is that Liberal websites definitely get more traffic than Conservative websites.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-40579\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/02-is-google-biased.png\" alt width=\"900\" height=\"852\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/02-is-google-biased.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/02-is-google-biased-449x425.png 449w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/02-is-google-biased-768x727.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>Now the question is, why is that the case? Does this show a potential bias that predates our keyword data set? Let\u2019s find out if we can explain the traffic difference.<\/p>\n<h4>Amount of content<\/h4>\n<p>When looking at the number of indexed pages, Liberal news sources have over 8x more pages indexed than Conservative news sources. In fact, the chart is almost identical to the one above for traffic share. As a result, the top Liberal news sites generally have more chances to rank for different things than the top Conservative news&nbsp;sites.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-130203\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/conservative-liberal-share-of-pages.png\" alt width=\"900\" height=\"852\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/conservative-liberal-share-of-pages.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/conservative-liberal-share-of-pages-449x425.png 449w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/conservative-liberal-share-of-pages-768x727.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<h4>Branded vs. unbranded traffic<\/h4>\n<p>The branded traffic for CNN and Fox News is roughly the same, meaning that a similar number of people are specifically seeking them out in organic search. However, branded traffic makes up a smaller percentage of CNN\u2019s overall traffic, likely because they simply have more content. CNN has ~2.5 times the number of indexed pages as Fox News, so they have more chances to rank for different things.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"652\" class=\"wp-image-40564\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screenshot-2020-11-05-at-13.45.55.png\" alt=\"Screenshot 2020 11 05 at 13.45.55\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screenshot-2020-11-05-at-13.45.55.png 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screenshot-2020-11-05-at-13.45.55-680x277.png 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screenshot-2020-11-05-at-13.45.55-768x313.png 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screenshot-2020-11-05-at-13.45.55-1536x626.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1600\" height=\"696\" class=\"wp-image-40561\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screenshot-2020-11-05-at-13.48.36.jpg\" alt=\"Screenshot 2020 11 05 at 13.48.36\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screenshot-2020-11-05-at-13.48.36.jpg 1600w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screenshot-2020-11-05-at-13.48.36-680x296.jpg 680w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screenshot-2020-11-05-at-13.48.36-768x334.jpg 768w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/Screenshot-2020-11-05-at-13.48.36-1536x668.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1600px) 100vw, 1600px\"><\/p>\n<h4>Other explanations for traffic differences<\/h4>\n<p>With only Google search data, it\u2019s hard to definitively determine why Liberal sites get more traffic than Conservative sites. It may be that Conservatives tend to use Google less. It\u2019s also possible that Conservatives get more news from TV, apps, or social media than Google. All of this may be true, but without additional data, these statements can\u2019t be confirmed and are merely conjecture.<\/p>\n<h3>More ways we could have looked for&nbsp;bias<\/h3>\n<p>If we looked at specific examples of queries, I\u2019m sure we would have found what appeared to be examples of bias. The problem with using individual examples is there is an inherent bias from the person doing the analysis. The data is complex and you\u2019d need a good way to determine if the sites and content are relevant to specific queries. Unfortunately, this would be difficult and extremely subjective, which is why we chose not to pursue this&nbsp;route.<\/p>\n<p>We could have also looked at link data or links from other websites to these news sites. Again, I have no doubt that this data is biased as the more popular and high-ranking websites with more pages would tend to get more links naturally. We already proved this in our <a href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/backlink-growth-study\/\">backlink growth study<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"1067\" class=\"wp-image-40562\" src=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/pasted-image-0-1.png\" alt=\"pasted image 0 1\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/pasted-image-0-1.png 900w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/pasted-image-0-1-358x425.png 358w, https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/pasted-image-0-1-768x911.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\"><\/p>\n<p>We could have looked at specific examples of search terms suggested by Google via their autocomplete system, but we already know that they remove many negative terms from these results. Again, this is already biased, and it would be difficult to prove any malicious bias&nbsp;here.<\/p>\n<h2>Final thoughts<\/h2>\n<p>There\u2019s an inherent bias in everything. While our data shows that Google Core Updates didn\u2019t seem biased one way or another over the past few years, we still can\u2019t confidently say there is no bias elsewhere in Google\u2019s system.<\/p>\n<p>Got questions about this data? Ping me <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/patrickstox?lang=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With our expert knowledge of search engine optimization (SEO)&nbsp;and Ahrefs\u2019 massive amounts of data, we wanted to see if we could identify any bias from Google by looking at data for popular Conservative and Liberal news sites. If you\u2019re not<span class=\"ellipsis\">\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">Read more \u203a<\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":150,"featured_media":40568,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[414],"tags":[],"coauthors":[377],"class_list":["post-40567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data-studies","odd"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>I Thought Google Was Biased, But The Data Shows They&#039;re Not<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Google has been accused of bias in the past few years, so we studied popular Conservative and Liberal news sites in search of evidence.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/is-google-biased\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"I Thought Google Was Biased, But The Data Shows They&#039;re Not\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"See the results for yourselves.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/is-google-biased\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SEO Blog by Ahrefs\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Ahrefs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"patrickstox\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-11-05T16:20:43+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-08-19T18:59:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fb-is-google-biased-towards-one-political-party.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1920\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"990\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Patrick Stox\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"See the results for yourselves.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@patrickstox\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ahrefs\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/is-google-biased\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/is-google-biased\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Patrick Stox\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/14bf754248f3c561786477e4e5fd2067\"},\"headline\":\"I Thought Google Was Biased, But The Data Shows They\u2019re Not\",\"datePublished\":\"2020-11-05T16:20:43+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-08-19T18:59:33+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/is-google-biased\/\"},\"wordCount\":1315,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/is-google-biased\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/ahrefs.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/fb-is-google-biased-towards-one-political-party.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"Data &amp; 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