Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach [SEE UPDATE AT THE END]
For some reason, I couldn’t find my post entitled “Gavin’s Falsifiable Science“. I wanted to track it down, in part because I think it’s one of my better posts. But when I looked on Google, it wasn’t there. Instead, I found an oddity. Here’s the top of the list of results from Google:
The list goes on below what’s shown above. I was glad to see that there are about twenty complete copies of my post floating around on various websites. And another fifteen or so links to my post.
But nowhere in that Google list was there a link to my actual post here on Watts Up With That. I looked through every Google result. No link to the Watts Up With That original version of my post.
Puzzled, I looked on Bing … where the post here on WUWT was first on the list, as you’d expect.
Below that, as with Google, are links to a bunch of other copies of my post on various skeptical websites.
Moving on, here’s DuckDuckGo … again, WUWT is first on the list, with the copies on other websites listed below it.
Hmmm … I moved on to more obscure search engines …
Same thing in all of them except Google. Google shows everything all the other sites show, all the copies, but it doesn’t show the original.
Computer “glitch”? Deliberate censorship? Unintended consequence of artificial intelligence? Cosmic ray damage? Sergei Brin found out about me and his wife? Accidental invocation of artificial stupidity? God decided to squash me like a bug for my insufferable arrogance in challenging the climate status quo? Some pinche tiranito chiquito has it in for this website?
No idea, but I certainly have seen enough ugly censorship and strangely unidirectional “accidents” and “computer glitches” to have a healthy and well-justified suspicion of the motives and actions of the social media robber barons …
w.
[UPDATE] Friday November 20 11:30AM Just tried it again, and magically Google has found it … top of the list now.
I suspect that the change might have been all of the searches from folks who read about it … without that it might have sunk into Google oblivion.
In case your searches missed this, here is a direct link.
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/10/31/five-times-google-was-caught-red-handed-on-bias-and-censorship/
I use startpage.com from the Netherlands. It uses Google search but provides anonimity through redirection. The article “Gavin’s Falsifiable Science” on WUWT is second and third from the top. This current article is fourth. Interesting test.
I tried it on google.nl and searched for: Gavin’s Falsifiable Science
It came out as the nr 1 result:
Ongeveer 62.700 resultaten (0,47 seconden)
wattsupwiththat.com › 2020/01/18· Vertaal deze pagina
Gavin’s Falsifiable Science – Watts Up With That?
(screenshot is available)
But, if I search for: “Gavin’s Falsifiable Science” (so, with ” “) as you apparantly did
then it comes as nr. 4, after this current post ‘Google Doesn’t Like It’ which is 3rd!
(sreenshot also available)
WUWT?????????????????? Using the quote marks alter the results???
Willis, could you try searching for Gavin’s Falsifiable Science without the quote marks too?
Would really like to hear the result and maybe solve the mystery?!
Double quote marks in Google searches tells it to look for that actual string. Without quote marks it will match those words scattered throughout the post, though it rank matches higher if the search terms are found close together.
I’m not sure how Google handles punctuation, e.g. I don’t know if |”| match double quote, left quote, right quote, or all of them (and maybe the European variants too.
Punctuation in the title may be part of the problem.
Where in the world did you try it from, as It appears to vary by geo-location. I just tried (with and without the quotes) from here in the US using both google.com and google.nz, I’ve tried it from 3 different browsers on two different PCs (a laptop and a desktop each connected to the net from different internet access points) and get the same result every time: No link to the original WUWT article.
From The Netherlands, at google.nl
Hi Willis,
Did you try the search without quote marks?
Best regards,
Scarface
What about other Wattsupwiththat articles? Only yours?
One thing I’ve suspected is that the long length of many posts here may knock down the “importance” of a search string, even when it’s in the title. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/01/18/gavins-falsifiable-science/ has 288 comments – a lot, but many posts have a lot more.
I did a search for |”Gavin’s Falsifiable Science” site:wattsupwiththat.com| and the first hit was not the primary URL for the post, but went to one of our “category pages” – https://wattsupwiththat.com/category/gavin-schmidt/ which just has the synopsis of your post.
Another post there has the title “Saturday silliness – Gavin loses it” UTF punctuation may cause funniness in searches and may be involved in your search, to keep that at bay, I tried Googling |”Saturday silliness” “Gavin loses it”|. The first hit was page 908 down from the home page, next was https://wattsupwiththat.com/author/cartoonsbyjosh/page/2/ (similar to the category page). The post itself has only 62 comments, so perhaps my thoughts about total size are not on track. Note I did not include the site:wattsupwiththat.com term.
Pretty weird. Time to make dinner, I’ll think about it more.
is used Gavin’s Falsifiable Science without quotes – the WUWT article appears in 7th place – but look what appeared in first place – https://twitter.com/climateofgavin/status/1217885474502729728?lang=en
People should stop using Google for search. I have not used them for search in years now.
search Gavin’s Falsifiable Science +WUWT and THIS article is first text result.
LOL. yeah the article complaining able google not showing the previous article shows up at #1 when searching for the previous article.
Willis:
Welcome to The Link.
Once information moves into the cloud, it’s just as easy to change or erase as it is to create.
As much as I’ve come to regard my excessive collection of physical books as a burden, I increasingly regard their immutability as an asset.
That’s why I keep the big copy of the Concise Oxford Dictionary on its stand.
COD given to me in 1962, when I graduated.
Same here – Collier’s or Britannica weren’t printed with disappearing ink.
Each search engine has it’s own bias. On my laptop and phone I have 3 at any one time. There is a definite trend for loss of reliability with Google.
Example, I live off grid in retirement (lifestyle, it’s not cost effective). I use an atypical battery chemistry, Chinese made Edison cells, out of patent decades ago. Search Google, and I get inaccurate articles on why I shouldn’t use them. I use any other search engine to get information. I have noticed the same on climate science, Medicine (I was a doctor), and other technical fields.
People, don’t trust Google. Use a variety of search engines. Even Google’s technical search results are becoming politicised.
Willis ==> It is WUWT that is on the poop-list with Gogglie —
It is Gavin’s support of GISS that is on the poop-list with me.
NASA needs to fire GISS and concentrate on rockets and outer space.
I know it’s worst on political issues, but it’s not limited to that. I’ve become convinced that some powerful interests can get some subject matter blocked, even just for their own financial advantage. Case in point, Gilead Sciences.
Specifically, five+ years ago I went back looking for an article about the coming availability of certain generic medicines from India, Bangladesh and/or China. I knew I had read it on the Fierce Pharma website, but google refused to find it for me. Took me several weeks to find it again, and for a while google seemed to start treating the entire Fierce Pharma website almost as invisible.
I suspect that with the proper influence or financial incentive google can and will bury a site or subject just as easily as they move a paid Adwords campaign to the top of a search.
Google didn’t even acknowledge International Men’s Day. Their Agenda is clear
Related but with FaceBook. I posted a write up on the supply chain mentioning Apple and Nike. It highlighted the low wages and working conditions at the Foxconn iPhone assembly plant. The post zipped right down the newsfeed like a falling rock.
@Willis,
Thanks for the post. I just switched my PC and phone to DuckDuckGo.
coaldust
(actual name redacted due to easy web location finding)
Here it is on searchalot:
https://searchalot.com/?q=Gavin%27s+Falsifiable+Science&ref=11192020194111&p=
– JPP
Just did the same search on google and it comes up number 7 on the first page here in AZ
– JPP
I use Yahoo! It got the right answer.
I find that Yahoo! works better for me. (When you click on a Yahoo! search result it opens it in a new window. Now, maybe I’m using Google wrongly, but when I click on a Google search result, it opens it in the same window – thus losing the search results – which is infuriating.)
“when I click on a Google search result, it opens it in the same window – thus losing the search results – which is infuriating.”
You can fix that in its Settings page.
I use Google Earth Pro and Street View when encountering a place-name in an article. I wonder what info they collect of me, and how they use it?
Example: A UK book publisher says congestion at Felixstowe Port has left it with no books to sell in the lead up to Christmas.
Years ago I used “google” — now I use “search-up” – – or similar. I just did a “search-up” of Felixstowe Port and spent 10 minutes ingesting information I really don’t need. [I searched with Duck Duck Go.]
The Loadstar website is good for shipping issues… there is definitely something screwy happening with bulk freight shipment/containers/UK ports at the moment… and with Felixstowe in particular.
e.g.:
https://theloadstar.com/uk-ports-need-outside-help-as-containers-pile-up-by-the-thousand/
@Willis
The view from the UK (or at least this UK citizen) using Brave or Google shows your post on the front page in 6th position, although the link is to Gavin’s category page on WUWT.
If it’s to Gavin’s category page on WUWT instead of the actual article, then the actual article link is not on google at the 6th or any other position. By putting in the title of his article, Willis should be able to get a direct link to it from the google search results, ideally as the first hit. That wasn’t happening at the time he posted (or apparently at the time you tried it in the UK).
Now, however, a direct link to the article is showing up for me in the search results as the number 1 option. All of us searching for it must have clued google (or it’s AI) in and they “fixed” their results (at least for this one case).
Google is to search as
Wikipedia is facts.
People still use Google search?
The item was second entry on a StartPage search. Prefer StartPage to DuckDuckGo as I can search just UK sites, and it has an advanced search.
ResultHunter is another good one (originally SearchConservative). Started by a conservative, it ranks conservative sites higher so you don’t have to wade through a mile of sewage to find what you want.
Hmmm…
I always google Stories here before commenting and I often find that the only web references to them are from other Skeptic websites… e.g it might be on GWPF, JoNova, Paul Homewood – but nowhere else in any mainstream or scientific site.
does that mean only the skeptics have the truth? Or that the stories don’t have any basis in reality?
griff
There is an old saying that there are always two sides to a story. If one side of the story is always missing from “any mainstream or scientific site” then it strongly suggests that they are self-censoring instead of trying to be balanced and objective.
No, skeptics are not the only ones to have the truth. But, they do possess an alternative to dogma.
More likely that google has the same attitude towards truth that both you and the journalistic profession in general have. Exemplified by the excellent Iowahawk’s aphorism, “…covering important stories. With a pillow, until they stop moving.”
Your experience reminded me of this Breitbart article:
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2020/11/02/google-displays-plagiarized-versions-of-breitbart-articles-ahead-of-original-stories/
“Even when the exact headline of a Breitbart News article is typed into Google, search results will frequently return results to obscure websites instead of Breitbart itself — sometimes websites that scraped Breitbart’s content without permission.
“For example, we conducted a Google search for the following Breitbart News original article: “Joe Biden Touts ‘Most Extensive & Inclusive Voter Fraud Organization in History of American Politics,’” by Kyle Olsen.
“The top search result is from a website called Geopolitics News, which plagiarizes both the headline and the full content of the article — complete with Olson’s bio.”
Be aware of Domain Name Server interference phenomena. UNCENSOREDDNS.dk
I searched “pinche tiranito chiquito,” because I wanted a translation. I used Google, and this post was the first link. Interesting choice of words.