Bias
Search Engine Manipulation
Search engine technology has bias. Search engines have the capability to favor certain sites over others and in some cases do systematically exclude sites, either accidentally or by design, to give prominence to others.
Search engines can give preference to pages with high backlink counts, or links to other sites. While it is effective at returning relevant results, it can also leave out smaller, but equally relevant sites with less backlinks.
Some websites cheat the system by requesting other web owners to add a link to their page through incentives such as discounts on products, free software utilities, and access to exclusive information.
Search engines must objectively decide what information is relevant, which is a difficult task. Search engines typically use frequency and position of keywords, but this is still subject to bias and manipulation. Web-page designers trick the ranking algorithm into ranking their pages higher than they deserve to be ranked by means of keyword stuffing, invisible text, tiny text.
Invisible Text
Websites may include keywords on their sites but make them invisible to the user. This is often used to spam the search engine as means to get a high relevancy rating.
Small Text
Similar to invisible text, small text is also used to assist with spamming search engines in order to get better relevancy results. Small text can be used in combination with invisible text to fit more keywords on the site.
Text Stuffing
Text stuffing involves using multiple keywords related to the websites subject. For example, a website that sells computers might include keywords that are repeated or are not exactly relevant.
