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Newsbusters; “Something frighteningly ominous has been happening on the Internet lately: Google, without any prior explanation or notice, has been terminating its News relationship with conservative e-zines and web journals.” |
Dr.James Joyner at Outside The Beltway – a mostly hard news/opinion site where it cannot be said anything resembling “hate speech” exists;
Google’s choice of news sites for scanning is inscrutable and frustrating. OTB was among them for months, often getting onto the front page and getting substantial referral traffic. Later, the metric changed and blogs were ranked lower on the results. Still, as OTB was often one of very few indexed sites covering a particular topic, the referrals were still significant. Then, suddenly, on January 7, OTB stopped being indexed. Unlike the above authors, I never received notification that my site was being removed, let alone an explanation. Indeed, several polite email inquiries went unanswered.
Several other blogs were purged at the same time although, oddly, not all of them. Wizbang and Moderate Voice, for example, are still indexed. The inclusion/exclusion criteria are not apparent. Political ideology does not seem to be decisive, as Wizbang is a relatively conservative blog.
One can reasonably argue that blogs, especially those which offer mostly opinion, shouldn’t be included in a news search engine. Indeed, I was dubious myself and actually somewhat sheepish about getting page one treatment right along with the New York Times and Washington Post given that OTB seldom has original reporting. Still, I would argue that the good blogs provide more utility that all but the best newspapers. Certainly, we add more than the hundreds of sources that merely provide AP wire stories.
Sheppard hits on an issue, though, that should concern all of us: The power of gigantic companies like Google over information. Because Google alone accounts for half of all searches, they are the key onramp to the Information Superhighway.
h/t Canadian Sentinel.
…part of this could be Google recently did a tweaking to their indexing algorithm and dropped a lot of sites.
Before we get the guns and pitchforks, maybe resubmit and wait a bit.
For instance, my new site http://www.digitalsmiles.com wasn’t listed for two months and had to go to the google support board for answers.
http://groups.google.com/group/google.public.support.general
Eventually it was listed, but still in limited format. It’s not coding or banned items. My other sites, http://www.tomax7.com and tom.mclaughlin.net rank very high in Google. Actually #1 with keyphrases like calgary microsoft trainer, aplus notes, web design notes and even “please laugh”.
So wait a bit before sounding the alarms.
cheers
tom
I don’t understand this. I just Googled “Outside the Beltway” and it’s right up there. Ditto in Google Blog Search. Am I missing something?
SDA is right up there as well.
Come on, people, relax.
If the MSM has anything to do with google then I will just use some other search engine.
Aw, sheesh. Google News. I was missing something. Sorry about that.
They’re talking about Google News.
Yes, Dawg. Calm down, boy… Google News. Are you sure YOU know how to read?
For alternative search engines, go to:
http://www.newmediajournal.us/daily_columns/anti-google_search_engine_index.htm
Submit one if you have one. Boycott Google!
…on the other hand, I can see blogs being shut down or ‘licenced’ in the near future.
Don’t under estimate the hip-join and power between MSM and politicians.
Can’t have the uncensored truth out there right?
…guess I can’t read either, Google NEWS…
Dang…and here I was so smug with myself finally ranking high in Google (as in search engine part).
😉
Well I did a search on “kate” under google images and WOWOooooooWOWZA…
…then i woke up.
I used to have Google News as my home page. But the moral equivalence of it started to grate on my nerves; somehow someone at Google thought it important that I know what communist China’s Xinhua new agency had to say on important events.
So I left Google News behind. Good riddance.
Related:
“Google dumps news sites that criticize radical Islam”
Search giant axes another news page, calls terrorism discussion ‘hate content’…
http://wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=50323
Daniel
Google news ,…thanks for the ride, see ya!
Google is a private business, just like Fox News. They can do whatever the heck they want, can’t they?
Of course Google can do whatever it wants. It’s a “free” world–even if Google is working to reverse that.
But here’s my question–what is a good alternative to using Google? Most of you who read this site are probably more computer-news savvy than I am. So what search engines do you use? What news sources do you go to? How can I avoid Google?
My new home page (for now) is ask.com
Actually this is a serious problem. Anecdotal evidence (months of receiving google news alerts on various subjects) clearly shows that they have places like the Liberal Party website and rabble.ca prioritized highly for Canadian political NEWS, while I have very rarely seen places like lifesitenews.com and have NEVER seen conservative.ca listed as a news site. Coincidence?
I think not.
And so is Halliburton.
Change your mind yet?
Google doesn’t get money from the government, Haliburton does. Change your mind yet?
Actually, no, Google CANNOT do whatever it wants. Do you think that they’d get away with it if, for example, they dumped a whole lot of sites from Google News who speak positively about homosexuality and gay marriage? Y’all know what’d happen: the gay groups would take Google to court and Google would be found guilty of human rights violations or whatever.
Google is NOT allowed under law to discriminate. And that is what it is doing.
Discriminating against those who speak freely about Islam and jihad, claiming that the free speech is “hatred” without the claim being true… Google should be hauled into court via class action or something…
Really, no, they cannot do whatever they want. It’s like a printing business that refuses to serve those who want to print gay-positive or Islamist-positive materials– they’d go to court and have to pay a lot as punishment.
If the left can always get its way in court against those who exercise their constitutional rights, then so can the right go to court to get redress against those who violate them.
Surely y’all have noticed this sort of pattern over the years? IT’S OUR TURN to take the leftists to court!!!
It might not be easy, though… as the courts are controlled by the left!
It’s interesting how Google has been at the forefront of headline news recently with this ‘breaking’ news, it’s help in locating democratic dissidents in China, etc.
Strange how it gets so much air play! I wonder if you ‘Googled’ Google if it would be 1st on the Google search engine.
If you allow it, it gets as much airtime as Brown’s The DaVinci Code (which I really enjoyed reading by the way!) as well as Gibson’s older model but none-the-less controversial movie Passion of Christ.
What say you? Shall we give it a rest?
Google has been fairly benevolent so far when compared to:
Corporation Microsoft and their massive affront to our computer use efficiency and time wasted.
MS insists upon *open links* for their up-date downloads convience, yet this very vunerability leaves us open to malware.
One can reason that endless software complexity, patches, plug-ins and updates can lead to huge Microsoft profits.
If a small firm needs quick advice, the per incident cost is $45 and or $100 per incident on their tech websites.
If Microsoft can*t squeeze a big compatibility license free from a competitor, then you can expect a Windows crash when you use it.
Microsoft does a lot of good work to prosecute internet criminals but that is understandable as MS and Windows have the most to lose.
Time for Linux or Mac. TG
Linex is the answer.
Naw gotta point out that …… Google is the corporation that caved in to Chinese state demands to lock out “dangerous news” and info sources from outside and identify internal “threats” to the state.
Corporate wealseness supreme….
I am SO glad that GOOGLE is finally doing something about the ranting, raving, hateful, (sometimes racist), general lunacy and intolerence being spewed by the extreme rightwing which litters and infests the www. Bravo to Google! However, I suppose that if your political goals demand a massive military confrontation in the Middle East, you will find the Google policy disconcerting. Too bad for you!
Almost got into it with that leftist imbecile… then I remembered the definition of a troll… and Leftdog is one.
Ignore his complete falsehoods designed to provoke some sort of reaction… he’s not worth it.
Don’t give him the satisfaction. He’ll either go away or get banned.
This really does raise issues that will remain with us for somr time to come. Yes Google is a private company and as such can make content decisions at its own discretion. It has been pointed out that there are other search engines. However in the context of a much larger question about access to information and freedoms of speech and press, where does this fit in? If the largest information search engine can at any time apply any filter it chooses, then they will have the power to manipulate public thought and attitudes through “denial of service” to those who may expect to be represented.
Kates “caragana rants” are in jeopardy of never again coming up in a google seach on the dreaded shrub just because she happens to lean to the right…. hmmm this could be a good thing, just kidding Kate!
Daniel
I’ve always found it kind of silly that I’ll frequently get Liberal Party of Canada press releases in my Google News searches related to Canadian poltiics.
“And so is Halliburton”
And so is Power Corp.
I think I heard somethig today (on CTV) about Al Gore having something to do with the internet. I hope not, but it would explain certain web sites being delisted if it is true.
oh yeah, Al Gore “invented” the internet, just ask him.
This is the start of the governments herding us into their totally controlled internetII…..they will exert force on current providers to make so much we use unavailable on the free net that you will willingly subscribe to the new system which tracks your every move and logs every keystroke….www.bigbrother.net
Friends don’t let friends surf google ….
ask.com is great by the way, just started using it instead. 😀
Deleting communist aiding GOOGLE is something I should have done long ago. Will check out ask.com
Thanks for info. Good comment Ldd.
Yes, WLM Redux… it’s Big Brother. This is what Orwell wrote about.
Perhaps we should look into moving our respective blogs to another provider… after all, Google can do whatever it wants, including deleting our blogs, for criticizing them and their blatant jihadist-supporting Dhimmitude.
And they have complete control over peoples’ Gmail accounts… in fact, I’ve been told via email that Google deleted specific back-and-forth email messages between a blogger and an Islamic leader… how else would it happen, else via request of Islamic leader and Dhimmi obedience?
There’s nothing wrong with Google delisting blogs from Google NEWS. Want to search for blogs? That’s what blogsearch.google.com is for.
Blogs are not news sources, no matter how hard you squint and try to pretend they are.
What part of “The inclusion/exclusion criteriaare not apparent. Political ideology does not seem to be decisive…” are people missing here?