You've actually got it backwards. The ranking algorithm (rankdex) developed by one of the engineers that founded Baidu was published in 1996, two years before pagerank. Some of Google's early patents actually cite the rankdex algo.
Not like it matters here
Cope
You're putting a lot of faith in whoever packages the 'distro'.
Obviously you have the same problem with trusting FOSS software distributions, but it's mitigated by things like Linus' Law and reproducible builds.
That being said, I personally use tiny11 VMs for certain non-critical things at home and work. I'd never use it for anything security related, or as my main OS, as there is a non-negligible chance that it's compromised (and there's basically no way of knowing).
I feel the same way about Americans.