A recent SourceFed video compared Google auto suggest behavior to Google Trend searches to suggest that Google is burying “Hillary Clinton Criminal investigation” as a search suggestion. The video makes the case by noting that an initiated search for “Hillary Clinton Crimes” does not give the actual search phrases as a possible auto-complete option; this despite the fact that Google Trends shows more search volume for “Hillary Clinton Crimes” than for the search phrases it does suggest. Furthermore, it draws a comparison for Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders by showing results for “Donald Trump racist” and “Bernie Sanders socialist.”
SourceFed’s Faulty Reasoning
There are several problems with this reasoning, and a more apples-to-apples comparison reveals no such preferential treatment for Clinton (nor any other candidate for that matter).
Crime searches
The SF video correctly pointed out that searches for “Hillary Clinton Criminal investigation” had more search volume than the search phrases being auto suggested. However, the same case can be made for “Donald Trump. The initiation of a Google search for “Donald Trump Crime” does not display the phrase as a suggestion. The top suggestion is in fact Donald Trump’s own book, Crippled America. This, despite the fact that it recipes less searches than “Donald Trump Crime.”
