Yet, news stories covering it are dropping at the same time.
I got an email from Ahrvid Engholm, an IT journalist in Stockholm, Sweden who was concerned about the “autosuggest” for the word “climategate” in Google disappearing. He was concerned about the post November 25th trend and invited me to take a look at a tool I was unfamiliar with called “Google Trends”. He writes:
Go to Google Trends – www.google.com/trends – write “climategate” and something very interesting will appear in front of your eyes. Select “The last 30 days” to the right.
I did just that, and here is the resulting graph, edited a bit to fit in the WUWT blog space, but you can see for yourself at the link provided.
Link: http://trends.google.com/trends?q=climategate&date=mtd&geo=all&ctab=0&sort=0&sa=N
Note that the trend graph is 4 days behind in data, which is apparently normal. But, there’s some interesting things happening.
Many people outside of the USA may not be aware of why there was a drop around November 25th in the Search Volume Index.
It is likely caused by the second largest US American Holiday called “Thanksgiving” which was on Thursday, November 26th. The drop starts on Nov 25th as people start their travel plans and leave the office and schools early.
Then the upwards trend resumes on November 28th when people in the USA return from that holiday.
No nefarious Google motives here. But with the rising search popularity, it does make a fly in the ointment for why Google’s “autosuggest” function in the search box is no longer suggesting “climategate” as it once was..
Does Al Gore’s position on Google’s senior advisory board have any bearing? In Al’s bio at http://www.algore.com/about.html he says:
“A member of the Board of Directors of Apple Computer, Inc. and a Senior Advisor to Google, Inc. Gore is also Visiting Professor at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.”
It seems he has done some “advising” of Google’s search quality in the past. Here’s a story from the New Yorker via Newsbusters about that very subject. There is some history there that has some bearing on the current situation.
In the case of “Climategate”, Mr. Gore’s ability to continue his current speaking engagements might be hampered. Thus, there could well be a motive for him doing some “advising” in this case. A phone call might be all it took.
Word from some others doing investigations say Google senior staff has told them the removal of “Climategate” from the autosuggest in web searches is algorithm based.
But the Google trends data suggest otherwise, particularly since it was restored and operating in Googles autosuggest feature back on November 28th, as documented here on WUWT.
Now it is gone again. Did the removal of “climategate” from the autosuggest feature make recent Google Trends data lower that the peak on November 29th? Only time will tell us.
In the meantime, I’m switching my default search engine to Bing, which doesn’t have such problems and doesn’t have Al Gore as an “advisor”.
Bing on November 28th:
click for larger imageUPDATE:
10 minutes later…
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Anthony,
I might be a Warmist convert…
I just tried Googling Climategate. Not only does Google search NOT pop up with climategate (Climate Guatemala comes up) but running the search only reveals 1 article and Google jumps straight to it.
So I tried Google Advance search
The page populates with over 1.5mil hits so i tried thumbing through the pages. The first WUWT article appears on page 3. The second article appears on page 6. Page 8 seems to be the last active page (articles 71 thru 80) page 9, and all subsequent pages, all loop back to page 1.
I think AlBore does have influence over Google
Google responds to an inquiry on this:
Crooked, dishonest agenda driven. Odd isn’t the description I would use.
Hmmm… would be interesting if we had other similarly “current” terms that we could run a consistency check on. Not, in the long run, that it matters much one way or the other – people aren’t dependent on the suggestion lists to be able to finish typing in the word.
After looking at the Google Insights, maybe it has something to do with “climategate” being most often combined with other terms. Might affect the way the suggestion algorithms handle it.
Also, it could just be that, after years of the skeptic position(s) being mocked, denigrated, dismissed, slandered, etc., we’ve developed a bad case of “We’re not paranoid – they really ARE all out to get us!”
I know it’s childish and all – but have you tried typing ‘Al Gore is’ into Google and seeing what the auto-suggest options are?
Well, it made me and the kids laugh…
James Delingpole refers us to a plausible – but equally worrying – alternative explanation from Richard North about why important Climategate articles such as the Telegraph’s Christopher Booker’s ‘Greatest Scandal in Science’ one may be being disappeared from the Internet search engines:
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2009/11/googlegate.html
debreuil
“So Al Gore phoned Google to tell them to take ‘climategate’ out of autosuggest (but not the news page)? And this so he could still get speaking engagements? Sorry, thats the dumbest thing I’ve heard since looking at harry read me.”
You are missing the point. Start typing and watch autosuggest. Some days climategate is suggested. Hours later, it is not. Just use common sense. For example, Climax Blues Band appears every time. Every single time. Look at the list of other ‘suggestions’. They are not generating traffic or intense interest. Something other than an algorithm is at work.
Which is exactly the problem with the entire climate debate. You are being told, directed, forced to a single point of view. And god forbid that you are allowed to see the actual data or real state. You can’t be trusted to make the right decisions. Is AGW real? Who knows? We aren’t trusted to decide for ourselves. Best to let the “real smart guys” decide for us. They will let us know how we should live our lives.
So who do we contact to complain? Where do we petition?
I generally like Google, but this sucks to be played like a fiddle.
Just typed in climategate on google and it sent me to climate
If you’ve never heard of climate gate, there’s not much chance you’ll hear about it accidentally from the main-stream media. They’re just not covering it like they do with, say, every other scandal in history.
And if you’re innocently doing a school project on climate change, or wanting to read up on the climate in some country that you’re considering vacationing to, Google isn’t going to accidentally let you know there’s a climate change scandal raging.
Starts to get a little suspicious, don’t you think?
Now what if I do a google search on ‘climate change’? Wouldn’t you expect to see screeds of articles on the climategate scandal, considering it’s been the most topical and hotly discussed issue with regard to climate change for at least 2 weeks?
Try it. Climategate barely appears. It’s like it never happened. Just a mention here and there. Just enough to give the impression that the pesky, rowdy crowd of deniers haven’t curled up and died yet.
Call me cynical, but all of this reeks of censorship and guidance of public perception. The sort of thing a totalitarian regime would engage in to keep its people in the dark. Oh, wait a minute – didn’t Google agree to do exactly this for China a few years ago? What a co-incidence!
Same thing happened with “The Great Global Warming Swindle” video. When it first came out on YouTube and Google Video, it would barely make it through the night before it was taken down, and then next day, people would put it back up, and Google would take it down again…
My blog has been blacklisted for over a year and a half… no more Google Inqiries into my blog, which is very un-PC, but, I still get hundreds of image searches from mighty Google… just nothing to do with text. Although, I used to get hundreds a day. I haven’t been blogging for over a year and Bing is starting to overtake google in search results/hits. Strange?
I’ve owned shares in Google since the IPO… but, now, I think it’s dirty money.
Mind you, I’d throw Larry and Sergei to the gallows in a heartbeat if it was shown that they were involved in high-level treason like Al Gore is. I’ve got zero sympathy for these globalist asswhipes, plying their billionare morality upon plebes like me. Hang them all.
Just wondering…my aol netscape page has always had the top 5 searches listed on the home page. Two days ago, the top 5 searches no longer appear. Just think it is odd.
Here is the latest tally using Bing vs Yahoo vs Google in searching the word “climategate”
12/29/09 6 PM EST
Typing “clim” Google now does suggest “climategate”
Typing “clima” it suggests climategate or “climate gate”
Using just “Climategate”
Bing 57,400,000 results
Yahoo Search 38,700,000 results
Google 3,690,000 results
Google using “climategate OR “climate gate” 4,760,000 results
Yes, Virginia, There is a Google Scandal in “Hidding the Climategate”