There are a lot of SEO studies out there, but not all of them are made equal. Here's how to decide if X is really affected by Y, or merely a coincidence. Every so often the SEO community will erupt ...

Did you know you can customize Google to filter out garbage? Take these steps for better search results, including adding my work at Lifehacker as a preferred source. I usually focus on something a ...

Here's another example of the difference between statistical correlation and causation. Maybe it's best to agree on a plausible path of causation before looking for the correlation. That way it avoids ...

That’s a great headline. After all, the search engine’s algorithm placed it at the top of the list, and I clicked on it. Should pro-family politicians get concerned and divorce lawyers excited? Should ...

With the explosion of interest in Big Data everyone in every department is looking for actionable intelligence. That’s great but there’s a downside: Trying to explain to, say, your VP of sales that ...

Despite the chant that correlation is not causation, some researchers believe the design of scatter plots nudges us to the wrong conclusions. Can a change in their design lessen that risk? Analyzing ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about the broad intersection of data and society. As machine learning has expanded beyond its roots in the worlds of ...

A comment posted by a reader on a recent post reprimanded me for suggesting that marijuana caused relationships to go bad. In this instance the reader was mistaken, as I had specifically used the word ...

"I read it as a joke!" one student chortled. "It definitely wasn't completely serious, was it?" another asked as she shook her head in disbelief. The intimate group of nine students—which includes a ...