In addition to the questions raised about Wikipedia...

Google does not produce the most reliable sources first and then list downward by reliability.

It lists whatever the most popular searches are first. Then lists down by popularity.

If you type into Google "Moon Hoax" your first Several Pages will be nothing but HB sites.

If you type in any question about Evolution, Big Bang or creationism, you may as well skip the first page because it will all be creationist websites.

Does this have much to do with the many misconceptions floating around?

All search engines have problems. The biggest problem I have with Google is they have started to invading my privacy. I switched to Ask.com, who at least will allow me set a cookie to tell them not to monitor me.

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I block google cookies with no trouble...

Some of this stuff is really off the wall, but check points 2, 3, and 4 at:

Google as Big Brother

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This thread seems to be more about Google than About BAUT

Well, that's the point. But on BAUT- the issues come up about many topics- that people ultimately google to find answers about.

I'm not sure if I find that website a reliable source, personally.

Try Wikipedia.

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Your OP seems to be mostly about Conspiracy Theories topics

Sheesh

The Op was a side tracked thought spin off of Chris Hillmans question about Wikipedia.

Hitting google about any controversial topic is not necessarily going to deliver you to reliable sources- since the listing is by popularity.
It raises a side question as to the motivations of folks who use google- considering that the most popular websites also seem to be the most dunderheaded ones.

I am never quite sure of the Google ranking
system. It seems that it will have an
arbitrary listing at first that becomes
self fulfilling as folk choose the hits in the
order presented by and large. They do not have
any insight of the hit rate of websites do
they?

Which question? Chris Hillman was proposing a new sticky of some sort, and dgruss23 had started a new thread about referencing wiki on BAUT. Is that the question?
Definitely Conspiracy Theories then

Actually a Mod split the thread- starting at dgruss23's post.

But it was in Chris Hillmans OP- after which he had regrets about it because he wanted to stay on topic and we wanted to either savage or defend wiki. Buncha kids I tell ya...
Or ATM. Or General Science. Or Questions and Answers.

O yeah, I forgot. Chris Hillman started a new thread, and asked the mod to migrate the posts. That's why his OP is not at the top of the new thread. He started the wiki discussion in the original thread, I think.

So, you're asking if anyone on BAUT should reference google, and how?

Not really...
I just had a stray thought. And it might help to bring it out into the open.
Threw it down in About BAUT because of similarities with the other thread- and because even if few people actually post in this thread- it will stay on the first page for a long time. Which definitely sticks it out in the open.

OK, but then it seems more related to a discussion of Conspiracy Theories rather than BAUT itself.I went back and typed in "Moon Hoax" in Google, both with and without quotation marks, and it returned essentially the same first six results:
http://www.redzero.demon.co.uk/moonhoax/
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast23feb_2.htm
http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html
http://www.braeunig.us/space/hoax.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_...ax_accusations
http://www.orwelltoday.com/moonhoaxdoc.shtml

They all seem to be on our side, although that last one seems to be thick satire
Probably

<chuckle>
Bad Astronomy should have been at the top of that list...

Maybe you should have added the word "truth"
OK hhEb09'1, I concede your point and I'm open to a Moderator moving the thread to CT if you like.
The reason I focus on CT or ATM is because there is a LOT of misinformation handed on a silver platter for those ones.

I think it falls under Questions and Answers or General Science too, to a lesser degree.

Hit rate doesn't factor into it at all. It's the number of links to a page (the link rate, if you will) that is the primary determining factor of its ranking. See here for an explanation of Google's Page Rank algorithm:

http://www.ams.org/featurecolumn/archive/pagerank.html

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True, true...

And every time my router/firewall logs back on with my ISP, my ISP gives it a different IP address.

Thus, Google isn't doing a very good job tracking me or identifying me...

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Thanks CodeSlinger, that was absorbing. It
seems a multipage website with much
interlinking gets itself a high rank! That
fits with what I have found. Perhaps you
might explain the Alexa traffic rank system.
That has got me floored.

Not necessarily. Google has warnings about that, with a threat of possible penalty. They even have warnings about link exchanges with external webpages: Google guidelines: Link exchanges