In order to answer this question, we will have to break it up into smaller questions says William D King. This way we’ll get a better understanding of what exactly happens when you search for a person on Google+. Let’s have a look at the first part of the question: “Is It Possible for Google to Filter out Fake Profiles or Spam Accounts from Profile Pages?” Technically, Google+ and the other social networks (Facebook and LinkedIn) store data in a way that’s specific to them. When we search for someone on Google+, we receive different results than when we search for someone on Facebook. The same goes for all these companies. They each have their own algorithms (sets of rules used in calculations or other problem-solving operations), which produce unique results when searching for something.
When you search for a person on Google+, the following things occur:
1) We send a request to Google servers with the name of the person we’re looking for
2) Google sends back a list of people matching our criteria
3) If you were looking for this person +1ing links, writing blog posts, or publishing photos on Google+, then you will get a list of accounts that have been active in the last few days. Otherwise, you’ll have a list of all the people who match your search criteria
4) We pick one from this list and go to his/her profile page.
You can find out more about how Google+ ranks our users by going here:
- Now let’s take a look at the second part of the question: “Can These Filters Be Used to Remove Fake Profiles or Spam Accounts from Profile Pages?” In 2010, spam was a big problem for all social networks, big and small alike. It was so bad that in December of 2011, Google removed all business pages from its index, because they were used to spread spam says William D King.
- Back when Google+ was just taking off, it had an almost identical problem with fake profiles. At the time they weren’t really concerned about removing fake accounts instead they started filtering them out by using their +1 button. As you probably know if you’ve used it before, this button is located next to each post and lets people endorse (or not) what you’ve shared. The number of +1s for your posts is displayed on your profile page and can help other users decide whether or not this is someone they want to follow. When Google launched Plus 1, it added another parameter into the mix: “Who do you +1?”
- Google’s secret weapon to deal with fake profiles was the Google+1 button. This allowed users to easily report spam accounts, without having to wait for someone at the company’s support center or send an email about them. It also encouraged people who wanted more followers to share relevant content instead of just sharing anything and everything they could get their hands on. How did this work? If somebody +1ed your profile or posts, it didn’t mean that he/she was endorsing these items; it only meant that they thought your content was good enough for other people to see it too (which is why it wasn’t restricted by “Who can +1 my posts”). To give you a better example, if you saw a piece of content that was very relevant to what you shared, then you might +1 it as well. You can read more about how Google+ ranks people as well as its search engine algorithms by going here:
- So, is it possible for Google to filter out fake profiles or spam accounts from profile pages? Yes. As long as the company behind this social network continues using its tricks on your posts and who’s sharing them, they will always be able to remove these fake accounts. However, there is a dark side to this strategy…
- Google first launched Plus 1 in May 2011 and started marking all links shared through these buttons with their own index of truth – just like they do with Facebook’s “Like” button. Whenever a user saw a piece of content that he/she might have interest in, they would click this button and tell Google’s search algorithm: “Yes, I like this. Now, please show other users who might like it as well”. That was the first step to make people understand how important these buttons were and why they should use them (instead of just sharing everything they found online).
Conclusion:
Google can filter out spam accounts or fake profiles from profile pages, but it needs to come up with the right strategy in the future explains William D King. Otherwise, its search engine might lose popularity among users who don’t have interest in sharing everything they see online. Hopefully, it will continue using the Google +1 button on all shared content so that negative accounts stay away.