Stephen Cognetta
Jul 28, 2017 · 1 min read

Hey — former Googler over here. The search results you’re showing are not advertisements — Google uses its ranking algorithms to determine what the most likely intent of the user typing the word “cod” is, and in this case, when people type “cod” into Google, they want to see Call of Duty, whatever a shame that might be :). This is mostly based on what typically users click on.

Colloquially, if you say the word “cod” aloud to a friend, you probably mean the fish — but note that this is a very very different context than typing in the word in a search result.

However, if your point is that it’s a shame that a video game’s acronym has overtaken the fish, I empathize :).

    Stephen Cognetta

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    Ex-product @Google, Princeton CS. I help PMs get their dream job @ https://www.tryexponent.com. More about me: http://www.stephencognetta.com