So search engine algos receive huge input volumes of false information,  but how does that false information come into existence on the internet in the first place?

 

The primary reasons are:

Agents’ Practices – Agents priorities are to maximize and secure their commission and ‘hidden price-markup profits’ as early as possible in the sales process. For that purpose, agents are true experts – every other consideration is secondary, or non-existent. Providing mis-information that misleads a buyer for this purpose is very profitable, The information is free, but the results that mislead the buyer provide the agents with huge profits that often range as high as 50% of the true market value of the property- and that 50% is the buyer’s ‘hidden cost’- which is very real, as the buyer discovers when they try to sell the property- which is usually years later. Free information is very costly, and in reality is very expensive .

 

Social Media, Blog References & Discussion Boards - Recent research reveals that 80% of internet buyers research blog articles and discussion boards before completing a purchase. Unfortunately a very large proportion of the information on blogs and discussion boards is also inaccurate and misleading. Often this is because agents are writing the information while using membership identities to appear as buyers. Many times the incorrect and inaccurate information is provided by a bonafide, authentic buyer, and describes what they know- but what they know is usually some small fraction of the facts they learned from brief discussions with informed sources, but most often is obtained from hearsay because they themselves never paid fees to receive independent professional advice, because they chose instead to save money and use ‘free’ advice, which has resulted in huge hidden costs, which they may not yet be aware of ! Blogs and discussion boards are not a reliable source of information.

 

Information Created by Artificial Intelligence (AI)– the huge increase in the use of AI to create information on the internet (websites, articles, research data, etc) has replicated the proliferation of false and misleading information on the internet. The AI algos (see above) produce the new information by scanning the internet and compiling the same false and misleading information into new false and misleading information (garbage in leads to garbage out).  The volume of false and misleading information is now larger than ever, and search engines rank that information very highly, not because it is correct and accurate, but because the AI algos are very good at structuring the presentation of the inaccurate and incorrect information.

 

The irony is that many ‘trusted and reputable’ sources of information are ranked highly in search results because they are considered an ‘authority’ – even when the information provided is incorrect and inaccurate... but only an expert can know this.

 

Very good examples of this are ‘Trust Pilot’ and ‘Scam Advisor’. These websites thrive on a valuable concept of exposing fraudsters by naming and shaming publicly… Unfortunately, they also enable fraudsters and scammers to cover their dastardly deeds with ‘reputation management’ that involve the scamsters posting a large number of fake customer reviews that make them look great. Having worked for over a decade fixing investors problems that have been created by these scammers, we know who they are and what they do, and so when checking the reviews of these scammers and fraudsters on the Trust Pilot and Scam Advisor websites,  we see these scammers and fraudsters have great high trust rankings- because they have cosmetically covered their evil deeds. On the other hand, when looking at our own MyTapu review on these websites we see one negative review… from just one customer of more than 3,000 served. And this review is making false, factually inaccurate and incorrect allegations about the services received… These allegations were presumably contrived by that disgruntled customer because MyTapu experts refused to follow that customer’s directions to avoid compliance with anti-money laundering regulations…which is a criminal offence ! . No surprise the customer himself, in his home country is a … yes, you guessed it.. an estate agent..>!