How did the Trump administration able to game Google’s search algorithm?

Was Google complicit?

———-

Prof. Heather Cox Richardson from last week wrote——

February 6, 2025

The U.S. has seen high-profile immigration raids since Trump took office, but Dara Kerr of The Guardian today reported that the Trump administration “is gaming Google to create a mirage of mass deportations.”

On January 24, 2025, old online press releases from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from as much as a decade ago were updated to make Google prioritize them as new releases, thus creating the illusion that raids are taking place all over the country.

When The Guardian asked ICE and Google about the changed dates, some of the new dates disappeared, dropping those stories out of the top of search results.

————