Donald Trump: Google’s Featured Snippet Urges Searchers To Not Vote For Trump — Is This Swaying Undecided Voters?
As one of the most polarizing and controversial presidential candidates in recent memory, Donald Trump’s campaign has been an interesting one. Not only has he managed to alienate much of the Democratic Party, but many lifelong Republicans are also extremely weary of voting for him. Regardless, there are still millions of potential voters in the upcoming election, from both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party, that are undecided on who they are going to vote for.
As with many other things in life, they are turning to Google for guidance. While the first page of Google’s organic search results for the phrase “Should I vote for Trump” shows a variety of different viewpoints, the featured snippet, quite possibly the most important result at the very top of the page, is extremely anti-Trump.
As Search Engine Roundtable reports, the featured snippet is not a manual result, and it is entirely based on the search algorithm.
“Well, at least the featured snippet says that, which is sourced based on an algorithm of the most useful search result Google can show for that query.”
As with all things Google, the featured snippet can change as new articles are posted and added to Google’s index. At the time of publishing this article, the anti-Trump featured snippet is no longer showing, but here is a screenshot of how it looked earlier this morning.
While there is nothing wrong with including negative pieces about Trump on the first page of the search results, the particular featured snippet in question does not exactly provide both viewpoints in an unbiased manner, which is something that an undecided voter may be looking to find.
“Donald Trump has proven himself irredeemably incompetent for the presidency. You should not vote for him. Donald Trump is not worthy of your vote. He is manifestly unfit to be the president of these United States; he is perhaps the least qualified, most unqualified candidate to every secure a party’s nomination.”
Regardless of which candidate a voter eventually chooses to vote for, they want a complete and unbiased picture of all of the viewpoints, both positive and negative, for all of the parties involved. Besides saying nothing of substance, the featured snippet urges Google searchers to not vote for Trump because “he is not worthy” and is the “most unqualified candidate to ever secure a nomination.”
The actual article provides numerous rich information and evidence regarding the author’s particular negative viewpoints on Trump, but the featured snippet does not convey any of this. As Search Engine Roundtable also notes, Ryan Jones of SapientNitro noticed that the same featured snippet was appearing for the phrase “Should I vote for Hillary.”
Google also says you shouldn't vote for Trump pic.twitter.com/brXxhomFs1
— Ryan Jones (@RyanJones) June 20, 2016
Like the Trump search query, the featured snippet for the Clinton query is also no longer showing at the time of publishing this article. It was, however, visible earlier this afternoon. Instead of showing information about Clinton, it instead slams Trump with the same paragraph that appears above.
Undecided voters are already well aware of Donald Trump’s shenanigans, but they still want to know all of the issues and learn about his viewpoints on various topics. The featured snippet above is not only thin, but it could be prematurely swaying undecided voters without first providing them with all of the facts.
[Photo by Ralph Freso/Getty Images]
