Dec 14, 2010 15:30 GMT  ·  By

With Google's dominance of the search space, criticism and scrutiny come with the territory and rightfully so. One of the biggest complaints, one that is picking up steam though has been around for years is Google's 'subjectivity.'

Amit Singhal, one of the top people at Google, had to defend the search engine after some analysis revealed that most Google Instant initial suggestions were for brands.

This leads to speculation that Google may be influencing this since searches with brand names in them are going to generate more revenue from ads.

But Google says nothing is further from the truth, the results are based solely on algorithms and statistics.

"We stayed true to our mathematical principles... Most people typing A are seeing Amazon, but that probability is predicting that most people typing A are going to complete to Amazon," he told Fast Company.

"If you type T, most people typing T will go to Target. That's the probability model. If you add R to it ("Tr"), most people are looking for a translation system. It's actually just pure mathematical modeling," he explained.

Basically, Singhal is saying that brands are just naturally popular and that's the only reason why they are suggested so often. But there is no meddling with the Google algorithms.

"What we do at Google and what we've done for years is to not inject any subjectivity into these algorithms," Singhal also said.

What he's referring to is the fact that Google doesn't intervene directly to alter search results, or suggestions for that matter, if the algorithm fails obviously at providing the best answer.

Google simply tweaks the algorithms until the best results are achieved. However, that itself is subjective, after all, search results are opinions. Opinions based on algorithms but opinions nonetheless.