4.1.3 Databases and your view of the world

• SABRE and IMS were just the first of a huge number of databases which quickly found their way into every part of our lives
• The benefits of databases were immediate, profound and widely publicised, but one of their potentially harmful consequences was rather less publicised
• The designers of a database could make data more or less visible simply by changing how data was retrieved
• American Airlines modified SABRE to ensure it always listed American Airlines' flights ahead of other airlines
• Travel agents preferentially selected American Airlines even when other airlines were cheaper or faster because they perceived the first few results to be the 'best' for their customers
• The American government intervened to outlaw the practice which it regarded as anticompetitive and disadvantaging smaller airliners
• American Airlines' manipulation of SABRE's results to favour their flights showed how supposedly impartial databases could be used to favour certain data over others
• We should bear this in mind whenever we interact with services powered by databases
• We presume web search engines, price comparison websites, online travel agents and online stores rank results from best to worst, so we almost always choose one of the first options presented to us
• But have those results been manipulated to drive us towards certain results?
• 32% of people select the first search result and another 18% click the second link
• The tenth result gets just 2% of all clicks and later results are even less popular
• With more than 95% of users only following links on the first page of results, entire businesses are devoted to improving the 'search engine ranking' of their clients
• Search engine optimisation (SEO)


  A process of improving the ranking of a site in a list of search results
• The Guardian is about the 150th most popular site on the entire world wide web and is in part supported by advertising revenue
• The Guardian site offers advice to advertisers in the article 'What is SEO and how can it help my website's Google visibility?'
• Why is SEO important?


  It is a method of increasing the ranking of a site in a list of search results, with the aim of improving the number of people visiting a link. For commercial advertisers, this could attract more customers to their business.
• How does the article recommend improving an organisation's search engine rankings?


  A listing can be improved by using keywords that the search engine recognises as relevant to the site's purpose and by linking to other high-value sites and social media accounts.
• Why is keeping material up-to-date important?


  Search engines prioritise pages that are frequently updated, which makes sense as old content could imply a company has gone out of business or that information is out of date.