Posted on July 29, 2020

Election Interference: Google Purges Breitbart from Search Results

Allum Bokhari, Breitbart, July 28, 2020

[Editor’s Note: Breitbart’s investigation into whether or not Google is blacklisting them mirrors much of my own findings when I looked into the matter regarding American Renaissance, which you can read about here.]

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Google Has Been Purging Breitbart Content from Search Results Since the 2016 Election

Search visibility is a key industry measure of how findable a publisher’s content is in Google search. New data shows that Google has suppressed Breitbart’s search visibility by 99.7 percent since 2016.

On April 4, 2016, Breitbart ranked in the top ten search positions (i.e., on the first page of Google search results) for 355 key search terms; but now, as of July 20, 2020, Breitbart ranks in the top ten search positions for only one search term. And, on April 4, 2016, Breitbart ranked in the top 100 search positions for 16,820 key search terms; but now, as of July 20, 2020, Breitbart ranks in the top 100 search positions for only 55 search terms.

Moreover, organic Google search traffic to Breitbart (measured by unique visitors) is down 63 percent when comparing the first half of 2016 with the first half of 2020.

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{snip} The first drop took place shortly after (and inferentially in response to) the 2016 election. The second took place in July of 2019. The third took place in May of this year, after which (1) unless a user types “Breitbart” into the search bar (and even then), they are highly unlikely to get any Breitbart content search results, and (2) Breitbart search results for “Joe Biden” and other Biden-related search terms have gone to zero. Even if you specifically search for Breitbart News headlines, you are unlikely to find them in Google search.

Google Just Killed All Search Traffic to Breitbart for Joe Biden and Joe Biden-Related Searches

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Breitbart News spoke to an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) expert, a 25-year industry veteran, whose job consists of analyzing traffic data from Google’s own website performance portal, Google Search Console.

The expert, who wished to remain anonymous, said he had never seen anything like this graph — and that it indicates highly probable manipulation on the part of Google.

“I’ve never experienced such a wholesale removal of rank and visibility on specific concepts on a site as I have seen being applied to Breitbart,” said the expert. “Removal is the key, not dropping in rank, which would be an organic devaluing. These ranks are just simply gone, overnight, while other topics have been untouched.”

“The sheer fact that there are thousands of pages of Breitbart content that reference Biden that were ranking before May 6, that now have no rank or impressions on search is a sign of manipulation, not algorithmic devaluing.”

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Breitbart News isn’t the only conservative news site that has an unusually low position in Google’s search rankings. Alexa data shows that the percentage of traffic to conservative websites that come from Google is far lower than that of corporate media sites.

Google Traffic List via Breitbart

Percentages of website traffic from Google, via Alexa web rankings. Red = media sources with conservative or libertarian-leaning editorial stances. Data is a six-month average as of July 7, 2020. (Credit Image: Breitbart News)

Eight of the ten lowest-ranked sites (Breitbart News, Fox News, The Daily Caller, The Blaze, Reason, The Federalist, The Daily Wire, the Washington Examiner) in the chart above are conservative.

Meanwhile, all ten of the top-ranked sites, with the arguable exception of heavy.com, are from the corporate, liberal-leaning, or leftist media. Far-left Vox.com is placed third.

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Last week, several conservatives on social media recently noticed that their articles were not appearing at all in Google search. Breitbart News was similarly affected. Google claimed to have investigated the issue, which the company has attributed to an error, and conservative journalists and websites have reported their search results returning. What last week’s incident shows is Google’s incredible power to control what people do and do not see with the flick of a switch.

But the data in this article shows that Google’s manipulation of search results, and its systematic undermining of conservative media, has been far more long-running and pervasive than this one incident.

Takeaways

Google has stated its intention clearly: to make sure the 2016 election of President Trump was a “blip” in history. Sure enough, with less than five months before the election, Google is manipulating election-related search results. {snip}