Forum:Google's "official" response

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Note: This topic has been unedited for 6708 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over.

As you may well knowm there has been question recently as to whether or not they "banned" uncyclopedia fromtheir searchresults. Well, I and probably some others (Stm) emailed google and asked exactly what the hell was going on. Well, here it is:

Thank you for your note. As you may know, our search results change regularly as we update our index. We find new sites, incorporate updates to existing sites, and lose other sites, which also means that many sites' ranking will change.

It's our intent to represent the content of the internet fairly and accurately. We don't manually assign keywords to sites, nor do we hand adjust the ranking of sites in our search results. Sites' positions are determined automatically by many factors, which are explained in more detail at http://www.google.com/technology/index.html

We appreciate your taking the time to write to us.

Regards, The Google Team

Original Message Follows:

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From: Tompkins22@msn.com Subject: Uncyclopedia.org Date: Sat, 01 Apr 2006 20:46:27 -0000

Uncyclopedia.org doesn't seem to appear in your search results, even when you search "Uncyclopedia" it is nearly impossible to find. I'm just wondering why this is, and if it will be fixed.

Language: en IssueType: report_problem Name: Tompkins

  t o m p k i n s  blah. ﺞوﻦ וףה ՃՄ ண்ஸ ފއހ วอฏม +տ trade websites 22:05, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

One word; "Bollocks" - considering our prominence, I really can't buy that in all honesty --Olipro (Harass) 22:12, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

It's a form letter, likely an autoresponder. --Carlb 09:00, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

See the article on "namebase". The reason is that large sites that cover everything tend to be penalized in rankings! --Chronarion 01:47, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

yet wikipedia or encyclopedia dramatica are not penalized? 70.48.103.56 04:53, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Well, it wouldn't be very clever to penalise Wikipedia... but I can't believe that ED gets a higher ranking... that stuff isn't fit for human eyes --Olipro Co-Anc (Harass) 13:07, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Not even a search for kitten huffing mentions uncyclopedia...Interrorbang 14:23, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

"Making up Oscar Wilde quotes" has Uncyclopædia dead last, after a long string of articles on other sites about us. --Carlb 14:52, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I smell a fishy --NERD42  EMAIL  TALK  H2G2  PEDIA  NEWS  17:03, 14 April 2006 (UTC)

i don't get why google would want to do that. unless ED has gotten to them.User:Jsonitsac/sig21:23, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

That is hard to stomach. Uncyclopedia should definately be at the top of a search for "uncyclopedia", and not the wikipedia entry. It annoys me that if a website is linked in wikipedia it links to the wikipedia page on that website. Only from there you can find the actual website. Similarly on google, if you search for this site you find the wikipedia entry on the site. That is ridiculous. There's just no way the computer did this automatically, and if it did the computer has an error which needs to be fixed. My solution? Use yahoo for searching the web. (yeah right) trumad

search with yahoo?! I haven't done that since like 1998!User:Jsonitsac/sig17:04, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

Here's an idea: just make fun of them. Google is a big, fat target that's gotten a little too full of themselves lately. "Don't be evil" is just asking to be mocked. Skewer them on China; claim that they've censored Uncyclopedia because we use the word "Democracy" too often. Mock the endless parade of new products and the neverending betas. The current Google article could really stand to be whipped into shape (I mean, "Sirgay" Brin, that's hilarious... if you're in fourth grade). --InfiniteMonkey 09:09, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Another thought: play a prank on them. Get as many people and sites as you can to link the phrase "Google" to "search.microsoft.com" or something. Or since Google is such a common one (and therefore difficult to manipulate in their PageRank system), repeatedly link the phrase "Don't be evil" to the Chinese Communist Party's web page.--InfiniteMonkey 16:27, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Yeah! That'll show 'em! Look, as much as you want to go David V. Goliath on their asses, it really won't help. I think it's unfair that they're doing this to us, but I'm sure there are other, more civilized, venues by which to deal with this problem.--Sir Flammable KUN (Na Naaaaa...) 17:39, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

When did I ever say anything about attempting to be civilized and constructive? I just think it'd be fun to take a couple swipes at Google. Anyhow, I did a bit of research into this (Google, how else?) and came across this page which sounds like a good start: [reinclusion request howto]. Apparently you've got to go to [Google], hit "I’m a webmaster inquiring about my website", then “Why my site disappeared from the search results or dropped in ranking", then "Continue", and then type your woesome story, with "reinclusion request" in the subject line. The problem is that first, someone needs to make sure we're not currently doing something that will piss off Google and cause them to deny the request/exclude us again. --InfiniteMonkey 20:42, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

I have just published an UnNews article relating to this issue: Google Admits to Censoring Uncyclopedia --Composure1 21:50, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Step 1: Inquire Google about results: FAILED.
Step 2: Notice the link called "Dissatisfied? Help us improve" at the bottom of search results. Be intelligent and as neutral as possible in your responses, flooding the feedback form isn't going to help at all. Ready? Go to town.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: Full scale war.
--(~Sir)Nuke || Talk v MUN v Not An Admin v Completely Unimportant 22:25, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Step 3: Profit. -- » Sir Savethemooses Grand Commanding Officer ... holla atcha boy» 23:47, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Don't you mean 3.5? --User:Nintendorulez 01:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I believe step 5 is profit, because we will sell Oscar Wilde quotes to both sides. A soild business plan, now we just need to figure out how to start the war.--(~Sir)Nuke || Talk v MUN v Not An Admin v Completely Unimportant 19:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

there is a risk that our efforts might just result in google sending us form letters about how "great" their page ranking system is. what about finding some higher-ups at google and bitch to them.User:Jsonitsac/sig19:11, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

They wouldn't do that! Arbitrarily excluding a site and then sending lame form-letter responses instead of fixing the problem would be evil after all. Anyhow, I find that if you really want to get an answer from someone, email isn't the way to do it. People find it too easy to ignore emails. Hell I have a ton of emails I'm ignoring in my inbox. Best thing is get on the phone and start making calls. If the person you're talking to doesn't answer your question, ask them to direct you to someone who can, call that person, repeat as necessary.

K, eveyrone go here and copy-paste this:

The site Uncyclopedia.org, a very popular spoof of Wikipedia is quite upset about why it does not show up when searching its own name, just pages about Uncyc. This has been discussed quite a lot on the wiki, and we'd like to know what happened.

Related:

http://uncyclopedia.org/index.php?title=Forum:Google_Banned_Uncyclopedia%3F

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Forum:Google%27s_%22official%22_response

http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/UnNews:Google_Admits_to_Censoring_Uncyclopedia

They give us impersonal form letters, we give them... a hand written letter, but copy-pasted and mass sent from multiple addresses. Uh, close enough. --User:Nintendorulez 01:10, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

...Yes, because I'm sure that the best way to get what we want is by annoying them as much as possible. If you just sent it once, they might just ignore it, but if we send it FOUR OR MORE TIMES, I'm sure they'll catch on that we really mean business and give in! That will teach 'em to mess with they Uncyc!!!!! --Spin 04:55, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

It'd be from a different IP address each time, and they'll figure out that we're a big site, and won't think we're some tiny little blog that really shouldn't be up top. --User:Nintendorulez 15:50, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't recommend copying and pasting, since it looks suspicious.--(~Sir)Nuke || Talk v MUN v Not An Admin v Completely Unimportant 19:06, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

If it's an autoresponder, no one's reading them anyway, so why would it look suspicious? --Carlb 14:03, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

Google's pagerank of all Uncyclopedia pages is 0, I just installed the Google toolbar. It shows pagerank of 0 out of a possible 10. Possibilities are that someone created a link farm to get Uncyclopedia banned, that is a lot of web pages linking to the same articles to trick Google into thinking that Uncyclopedia is running the link farm. The other was a 401 redirect, but I think Google fixed that exploit. Somehow the Google pagerank on some Uncyclopedia articles went from like a 4 down to 0. That is the main problem, how did the page rank drop to 0 for all Uncyclopedia articles? Could it have to do with Wikipedia users mirroring Uncyclopedia articles and linking back to them in an effort to create a link farm to fool Google, or is it something more sinister? an expert says Uncyclopedia is banned from Google and Yahoo, but not MSN. --2nd_Lt Orion Blastar (talk) 20:42, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I don't think Yahoo has banned Uncyclopedia, since this web site is the first result if you search for "Uncyclopedia" on yhaoo.

And I searched for "http://uncyclopedia.org", yahoo returned 43800 results, msn returned 5033 results, and Google returned 0 results.

70.48.248.224 22:22, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

---

left a comment as I mentioned on somewhere... I got an e-mail in response:

In response to your note on Matt Cutt's blog, I've asked colleagues of

mine to investigate why your site was penalized in our index. I can't

promise either an ETA or a followup, but just wanted you to know that

your comment wasn't deleted without being acted upon.

Regards,

Adam, on behalf of the Search Quality Team

That might help--epynephrin 20:20, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

If no-one's noticed this before, if you type in "the content-free encyclopedia" on google then the first result does redirect to the uncyc main page, but the address it shows under the actual result is a different one --Jamtrousers 13:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

I tried searching for just plain "Uncyclopedia" and it looks like there is an uncyclopedia-dot-net which does redirect to a page of link spam. Annoyingly, it placed higher than we did. Um, wasn't the idea to blacklist the spam and keep the valid sites? --Carlb 02:05, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

GOOGLE IS THE WORST

we should spam the internet with I HATE GOOGLE I HATE GOOGLE I HATE GOOGLE I HATE GOOGLE - I dont actually hate google its just a half-thought-out-but-really-not-at-all-thought-out-kind of suggestion --Nerd42Talk 21:13, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

A Call to Arms, Legs, and Various Other Appendages

This is not the time for babbling incoherency or idle threats of easily-thwarted online shenanigans. What we need is someone who lives in the Mountain View, CA area who owns a well-tailored three-piece suit and is willing to boldly and confidently walk right into Google's headquarters, meet these people face-to-face, and present our case in a logical, rational, and preferably somewhat non-obscene manner. And, hopefully, not just make things worse by doing so. I'd volunteer, but... well, you know how it is! (Besides, I don't live anywhere near California, at least not at the moment.)  c • > • cunwapquc? 04:48, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Who Fucking Cares?

Why is everyone in such a tizz over whether or not Goggle ranks us? We've even gone to the trouble of removing all the black-on-black text, destroying perfectly good jokes just to applease the demon God. (Goddle?) If anyone types in 'uncyclopedia', they will quickly come here by way of wiki. Quite frankly, I like it that not every single dickhead with a mouse can find us. Think of the increase in spam and vandalism and people who are convinced they have a sense of humour because they like Jim Davidson, or they once chuckled at David Letterman. All this stress, why do we give a monkey's toss? FreeMorpheme 09:06, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Because we're all narcissistic attention-whores with fragile ego-facades and deep-seated feelings of inferiority that cause us to crave any form of recognition or approbation we can obtain relatively easily without having to actually identify ourselves in any meaningful way?

Mind you, that's just a theory.  c • > • cunwapquc? 17:45, 25 June 2006 (UTC)