First the background on “Don’t be evil” as reported by Wikipedia:
In their 2004 founders’ letter prior to their initial public offering, Lawrence E. Page and Sergey Brin explained that their “Don’t be evil” culture prohibited conflicts of interest, and required objectivity and an absence of bias:
Google users trust our systems to help them with important decisions: medical, financial and many others. Our search results are the best we know how to produce. They are unbiased and objective, and we do not accept payment for them or for inclusion or more frequent updating. We also display advertising, which we work hard to make relevant, and we label it clearly. This is similar to a well-run newspaper, where the advertisements are clear and the articles are not influenced by the advertisers’ payments. We believe it is important for everyone to have access to the best information and research, not only to the information people pay for you to see.
And now this surprising screen cap I’ve been sitting on for awhile. While WUWT was the top result, the user is given the option to block WUWT results forever in Google Chrome:
That screencap is from April 22nd, 2011.
ADDED: Some folks suggest it was solely the use of the “f word” in search that triggered it. If so, why is there no block option for Lucia’s the Blackboard?
I ask readers to try getting that message to pop up searching for specific titles on Real Climate or Climate Progress and other pro AGW sites. I tried and could not back then, though it is possible the algorithm has changed in the month since I tried. I’ve also noted that once you ignore the “block all results” option, it does not appear again (for that website).
Your experience may vary, I’m only reporting mine and it appears that once you have a look at the content you get the offer to block, the option goes away. So I can’t repeat it without doing a reinstall and registry cleanse.
[ADDED: Reader Jeremy was able to get the same result with RealClimate, see here so it is good to see that it is not specific to WUWT, though that still leaves the graph below]
What prompted me to publish this screencap today? I needed confirmation that something was afoot.
Steve Milloy of Junkscience.com dropped me an email about his article Climate cleansing: Google to censor skeptics? where he quotes this from the Yale Climate Change Forum:
——————————————————–
The Yale Forum on Climate Change reports that,
… Google leads people to accurate information about climate change. Fifty-two percent of the 980 sites [returned by a Google search on climate change-related terms] contained clear statements in line with the vast majority of peer-reviewed climate science evidence. For example, if you had searched for “climate change myths” in early May, you would have found this Environmental Defense Fund site, which says, “The most respected scientific bodies have stated unequivocally that global warming is occurring, and people are causing it.”
And Google may be willing to fix this problem for the alarmists. The Yale Forum goes on to state:
Meanwhile, can search engines do a better job of pointing the public toward credible sites?
A Google spokeswoman, who insisted on anonymity because she is not a Google executive, said the company is always looking for ways to improve results. “Last year, we made 500 changes to the algorithm to improve search quality,” she said.
————————————————————————————-
So, it appears if you can’t beat them, censor them. I hope I’m wrong about that, but this graph below suggests that my traffic has been impacted by changes in search engine algorithms, Google of course being the lions share.
Here’s my Alexa search driven hits to WUWT, note the step change in mid 2010, perhaps one of those “500 changes to the algorithm to improve search quality” was implemented then:
Source: http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wattsupwiththat.com#
ADDED: Some commenters suggest “lack of interest” in climate issues as the reason for the sharp drop, compare the number of search related visits at RealClimate.org then:
The blocking option might be a one shot deal, but the step change and continued lower results (for WUWT search hits) concern me. I had a large traffic spike in December 2010, related to the COP16 climate conference worldwide interest, but no corresponding large uptick in search hits.
UPDATE: Harold Ambler points out in comments his story about what happened when ClimateGate broke, and Google’s search lagged well behind Bing at the time:
http://talkingabouttheweather.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/google-gate/
I have avoided using Google for a while. My issue is that it stores all the information about your activities. The reason is to target advertising but they have been known to ‘cooperate with the authorities’. I have no idea if Chrome or Android does the same.
In Europe Google gained notoriety when it was discovered that while their cars were photographing street scenes they were also checking all the wifi connections and recorded unsecured ones! They claimed it was innocent but why on earth would they do that?
Further afield, it was discovered that iphones stored all the phone’s movements [and presumably yours] for up to a year. Again it was declared as an innocent feature, but why do it in the first place. Android does the same but on a limited scale – the last 50 mobile masts and 200 wifi networks.
While all these may be done for innocent reasons, and most people have nothing to hide, it is still creepy to have your life monitored. Also, once collected it can fall in to the hands of less innocent people. It strikes me that a lot of this information is exactly what the US government would want.
Even when people mean well they may decide ‘for your own good’ to change or limit things. For example the co-founder of Wikipedia was being interviewed on the BBC about his fight with the Chinese authorities, complaining that they wanted to censor and remove items that they disagreed with, yet this hypocrite was doing exactly the same thing on Wikipedia when it came to skeptical views on Global Warming.
Dominant businesses run by idealists can be a problem when it comes to dealing with people with different ideals or outlooks, and it must be a constant temptation to try and ‘push’ these people towards their own idealogy ‘for their own good’.
To correct the comparision, here is the Bing result.
Bing.com Search Willis Eschenbach
110521 0315 CDT
1. www linkedin com … /935 Chief Retiree
2. oarval org /Termostato Junio 14 2009 Thermostat Hypoth.
3. www mitosyfraudes org /calen10 /Termostato
4. www mitosyfraudes org /calen11/ Salven a los Atolones
5. plazamoyua com 2011/03/04 no-se-trata-de-mi
6. scienceblogs com 2009/12 concocted a cooling trend for Darwin
7. climatewtf blogspot com 2010/02/28 “gets mad” at Curry
8. www zoominfo com Amateur Scientist
9. www spoke com Construction Mgr.
10. wattsupwiththat com “one of the joys of writing..”
11. wattsupwiththat com 2010/08/11 “Of Rice and Men”
12. www theblogmacracy com referral to “cowboy scientist”
13. www theblogmacracy com 2009/12/30 on complexity
14 arthur shumwaysmith com “Not Spagheti”
15 climateaudit org 2009/11/25 FOI Request
16 www exxonsecrets org /personfactsheet id=1320
17 www grist org /member 11837 “AGW supporter’s hatchet job”
18 wmbrigs com p=2197 Mr E responds to statistician.
19 climaterealists com id=7408 Dear Googlefolk.
20. camirror wordpress com 2009/11/25 FOI Request.
I just did a yahoo, google, bing, and dogpile search for climate blogs. Dogpile was the only one that brought up WUWT on the first page of listings.
Possibly off topic, but Google apparently really does censor search results when someone convinces them to do so.
http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/hgq68/yes_google_does_censor_search_results_sometimes/
I would like to try a controlled experiment to count hits sometime.
D. Patterson said “Another search engine is .
It’s claim to fame is not tracking and recording your IP address, and selling them to advertisers etc. For more than the default 10 search results, change the settings in the Advanced settings webpage.
Is what???
Dave Worley,
yes its personalized. Again i’ll suggest that people use the labs version of google and start hitting the plus 1 for WUWT.
Or for Bing, folks need to “like” the posts that feature wuwt. that feeds Bing
Happy to report, I only use Sheriff BING, bing, BING!!! Ricochet Rabbit search engine nowadays.
At this time, I think there are many otherwise well-educated and good-intentioned people who see objection to Climate Change abatement policies in the same light as primitive people would once have viewed the objections of a successful farmer to sacrificing his best animals to ensure good weather as required by their local revered expert in the occult. I suspect that many of our leading social media are still dominated by people with this outlook.
Google is total EVIL. They definitely have an agenda. The effectiveness of google search engine is diminishing each month in favor of more paid hits and propaganda driven material.
http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf
[reply] Check your link Richard. RT-mod
I’ve decided to keep book on some google search results just to see what changes over time. I’m also in Mexico this week, so comparing .com and .com.mx might be interesting.
Here was a search with a couple of bizzare twists….
Google Search:
Eschenbach GISS after seeing it in a current climateaudit post
Date: 5/22/2011 Tabasco Mexico ISP
1 climategate tv 19 Jan 2011 RE WUWT
2 www stripes com 15 Apr 2011 Eschenbach hospital
3 wattsupwiththat com 11 Aug 2010 More Gunsmoke “Very good effort, Willis…” is this a snipet from a COMMENT? YES! To Thomas Aug 11, 2010 at 3:47 a, about the 7th down. WUWT???
4 groups google co ug W.E. comments on Australian GISS data
5 regator com Willis on Giss Model E
6 groups google com alt military Eschenbach hospital
7 www fmhealthcare com hospital
8 tamino wordpress com 14 May 2011 Fake Forcing
9 utahclimate org 12 Aug 2010 GISS temp manipulation RE WUWT
10 thegwpf org 14 May 2011 Black Box of Chocolates RE WUWT
11 climateaudit org 15 May 2011 Willis on GISS Model E
12 www wikio com 19 May 201 McIntyre has followed up
13 eo wikipedia org (spanish)
14 www gmls eu /beitraege Eschedbach C., pdf
15 pipl com directory W.E Estimated sensitivity of Hansen’s GISS II
16 www youtube com 28 March 2010 (German)
17 wattsupwiththat com 25 Mar 2010 GISScapades
18 www unusualbookmarklets com 21 Mar 2011 Open letter to Dr subra suresh Watts Up with That
19 scienceblogs com 9 Dec 2009 W.E. caught lying about temp.
20 citeseerx ist psu edu /viewdoc Elizabeth Eschenbach Road Decomm
Comment #3 a WUWT link, but the snip is from comment #7. Anyone seen that before?
#1, #5, #9, #10, #18 are definately second sourced pages back to WUWT originals.
RE: steveta_uk says: May 20, 2011 at 10:03 am
The hypothesis that Google has seriously goofed in its “content farm” algorithms should be considered seriously.
How about this in relation to filter bubbles and your normal selections setting up bias in your further searches.
http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html
“Richard Holle says:
May 22, 2011 at 12:10 pm
How about this in relation to filter bubbles and your normal selections setting up bias in your further searches.
http://www.ted.com/talks/eli_pariser_beware_online_filter_bubbles.html”
Good link Richard. Precisely the issue.
Stephen Rasey says:
May 20, 2011 at 8:09 pm
You might want to spell his name right and search for |Willis Eschenbach|.
The first hit at Bing and Google was Deltoids’s “Willis Eschenbach caught lying about temperature trends”. Google lists a cluster of three WUWT posts after that, Bing listed one.
Reply to
Richard Holle + Dave Worley: RE: Filter Bubbles
Filter Bubbles may play a part, but this is something much more basic going on.
Take for instance today’s (May 22, 2011 at 10:58 am)
#1 hit to climategate dot tv [A] It is copy (with link back) of at least the first three paragraphs of
[B] Delingpole’s 2011.01.18 Warmists: ‘We can’t win the game, so “ at blogs telegraph co uk Delingpole Linked with full attribution to
[C] Willis’s 2011.01.15 WUWT Unequivocal Equivocation
How does any algorithm weigh [A] ahead of [B]?
My search was for “Eschenbach GISS”
“GISS” is not found in either [A] nor [B].
It just so happens than “GISS” is in [C]. So it should have been ahead of the others.
Yet my search returns [A] as #1, but neither [B] nor [C] in my top 20.
[A] is not using attribution as often as it should (check out their copy of Smoking Gun at Darwin Zero… I will not give them the satisfaction of a link.)
Figuring out Watt content is original and what content is copied from third hand sources is hard to do. I’ll give Google that. We wouldn’t be happy with link farms being listed as #1 either.
But Google’s miss here tells me that Google Goofed
This isn’t a filter bubble issue. I think it is an anti-link-farm-algorithm gone awry.
Anything I can help with to see if there is a country difference? I gave up Google 3 years ago, but can search from here. Seems to me you have an older problem because your graph also shows a drop just about Climategate time in Nov 2009. I would have expected a rise.
Disturbing fact: Web sites brought up by Google search blocked. I put in a Google search for “Global Warming” on May 25th. One of the sites the search brought up was called “Global Warming Hoax: News.” I clicked on it but got the following message: “You don’t have permission/access on this site. Additionally, a 500 internal server error was encountered while trying to use an error document to handle the request.” I went back to the beginnings and then I noticed small blue print below the search entry: “Block all http://globalwarminghoax.com/”
This is a total outrage and someone at Google had better have an explanation for that.
REPLY: The problem has to do with a javascript on the page (probably the scroller) being misidentified as a trojan by AV software – They need to fix the problem on their web page, Google is not at fault. – Anthony
I’m with Kath (May 20, 2011 at 9:48 am );
I use Scroogle ( http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/scraper.htm );