Google any 3 random numbers + ‘new cases’

By June 24, 2020August 5th, 2020algorithms, CoronaVirus, Google, News

What happens when you type any 3 numbers + ‘new cases’ on google

As a Search Engine Optimization consultant and someone that’s obsessed with Data and the workings of google algorithm, I was testing the knowledge graph for the total number of new cases when the recommended searches pointed me to a random number. I decided to explore this and started adding random numbers to the search query with new cases. Each SERP had a Covid-19/ Corona Virus result with that many cases.

Q: What happens when you Type any 3 numbers + ‘new cases’ in google search?
A: You’ll see only articles that are Coronavirus-related articles. Really, we manually tested this with one hundred searches. 

Q: What happens when you Type any 4 numbers + ‘new cases’ in google search?
A: You’ll again, only see articles that are Coronavirus-related articles. We manually tested this with a hundred searches. 

The accuracy for results is way higher for 3 digit numbers as compared to 4 digit numbers + new cases. Almost every 3 digital number + new cases search holds true to this result page. For 4 digit numbers, its at 80%. Whatever the variance, its really interesting that Google’s knowledge graph is doing this and there are news articles to support it – globally.

 

Conspiracy theory, Statistical accuracy, or detailed news reporting – we’ll leave up to you. Tell us what you think in the comments. 🙂

Pushkarraj Mehta

Author Pushkarraj Mehta

Just a human talking to bots

More posts by Pushkarraj Mehta

Join the discussion 2 Comments

  • Sandeep says:

    I think this is neither conspiracy nor accuracy, it most probably TRP. Generally speaking today most of the public is searching for updates on Covid and that may be the reason why any search automatically is showing these results. I think the results change according to the trending topic of the period.

    • Oh Absolutely!
      There was practically a tweet/ news article non a daily basis to record the number of cases. So from a search results and indexing point of view, it makes complete algorithmic sense. Paranoia and negative news sell like a charm.

      Google’s knowledge graph even for just “new cases” considers the user intent as COVID-19 and shows you results for COVID-19.
      I added the 3 digit number filter to add an interesting angle to the blog and a fun test for users to see what happened. 🙂

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