Nozzle Accuses Google of Displaying 'Poisoned' Search Results to Rank Tracking Tools
Nozzle detected poisoned search results in about 8% of 27.5 million pages, stating that Google intentionally serves them to rank tracking tools and AI data scrapers.
Rank tracking platform Nozzle stated that it detected "poisoned" search results in about 8% of 27.5 million result pages analyzed across 49 countries, pointing out that Google intentionally serves them to tracking tools and AI data scraping software.
The platform explained that normal results retained 88.5% of the same websites upon repeated searches, compared to only 20.7% in poisoned pages, meaning these pages fluctuate significantly between searches.
In the same context, DemandSphere stated that it detected fake results in about 11% of its daily checks, according to an analysis published by Search Engine Journal. Google has not publicly commented on these allegations so far.
This controversy adds to growing doubts regarding the accuracy of rank tracking data that marketers and website owners rely on to measure their search engine performance.
What do these terms mean?
Search engine results page: The page displayed by a search engine after entering a keyword, containing various links and results.
Data scraping: Automatically collecting information from websites via software, which AI uses to train its models.
Poisoned results: Pages intentionally served with incorrect rankings or different positions from those visible to real users, aiming to deceive measurement tools.
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