My relationship with Google News has always run hot and cold. No make that cold and tepid. From the very beginning of Google News as an experiment back in 2001, they refused to index my work, which they said was my fault, not theirs (“they” being an algorithm attached to an e-mail box, of course). But new evidence has recently come to light suggesting to me that Google News has an actual blacklist.
For those not familiar with the expression, “blacklist” usually refers to Hollywood screen and television writers from the 1950’s McCarthy era who were thought to be communist sympathizers and were banned from working openly in the entertainment industry as a result. Not Hollywood’s finest hour. My suspicion is that Google News has a similar list of writers it would prefer did not exist and these people (including me) are systematically excluded from having their work indexed and publicized.
Despite having given Google some of its earliest publicity in the form of the company’s first-ever TV interviews back in 1998, I’m told by friends inside the Googleplex that I have enemies in high places there, which I find flattering.
Google’s excuse for excluding me has always been that I am a sole proprietor of this operation and therefore what I produce doesn’t qualify as news. Tell that to the hundreds of companies I’ve been the first to find, the dozens of big stories I have been the first (and sometimes ONLY) reporter to cover, including a bunch of big stories about Google.
Nothing personal, it’s just the algorithm, they say.
We’re not evil, we’re just programmed that way.
Yeah, right.
When I was at PBS I pointed out to Google News that my URL was pbs.org/cringely, so I was really part of a larger operation that included news sources Google was indexing. If they indexed the NewsHour, I argued, then they had to index me. And so they eventually did — for a few weeks at a time. But I’d inevitably fall off the Google index again while some other bozo, often with a tenth or fewer readers than me, would stay on.
When I wasn’t being indexed by Google (which remains the case today) the only way my work would appear in Google News was when some other writer would cite me, which fortunately happens most weeks. Still, such second generation coverage doesn’t bring me any real traffic, I’m pretty sure.
Here’s how it would go down. I’d fall off Google News, a PBS lawyer would write to Google and I’d eventually be back on for a few days until it started all over again. The times I wasn’t indexed lasted for weeks. And when I left PBS and arrived here, well that was it. Now I really was a one-man band.
So I was very excited a couple months ago when I began writing for AOL’s Housingwatch.com site, where I currently file 1-2 pieces per week on real estate and mortgages (here’s the short version: the mortgage industry is screwed, film at 11). With something like 30 professional writers working at Housingwatch alone, I knew Google would have no choice but to index my work.
Nope, I guessed wrong.
To my surprise it looks like none of the coverage at Housingwatch or its parent AOL is being indexed at all, which is stupid considering AOL serves 15+ million readers per day.
A week ago I wrote a short piece for Housingwatch that was picked-up by the AOL home page and given prominent play. As a result it got more than 750 reader comments over one weekend — a huge number.
If you want to figure how many people read a column from the number of comments, try multiplying by at least 1000. My posts here tend to average over 100 comments, which is pretty good. But 750 comments, that’s spectacular.
Yet when that particular AOL column was burning-up the Internet I saw nothing about it on Google News. It was invisible.
How could that be? Most of the top stories on Google News weren’t getting 750,000+ readers, I was sure, yet they were being indexed.
My theory, then, is that both AOL and I are blacklisted from Google News. That’s hundreds of professional writers… invisible.
AOL is in many ways a Google competitor, I suppose. Certainly it is run by an ex-Googler, who probably left behind bad feelings. But, if true, how fair is this on Google’s part? Not very. I don’t suppose it qualifies as evil, but it is definitely petty and in no way serves Google users, who should be appalled.
Google News doesn’t index Engadget anymore, but I always figured it was some kind of exclusivity deal that they had worked out with Yahoo! Is it possible that AOL has chosen not to be indexed in Google News so that they can provide unique content on their own search index? Seems hard to believe that Google would actually blacklist anyone. I hear you on the lame rule about individuals not being allowed to get published though, there are a ton of hack publications catering to all things Britney, but a small handful of talented writers who consistently publish unique stories and viewpoints. One way that you could get around this would be to invite some guests to publish things on Cringely.com once in a while. I’m sure that you know plenty of great journalists and people in the industry who’d welcome the chance to share their perspectives. On the other hand, then it wouldn’t be iCringely anymore, but I’m not sure that even matters. On the flip side of all of this, not being in Google news makes subscribing to your site all that much more of a benefit to your readers. Some of what you write is pretty powerful and I like being able to read it before a bunch of fan boys who only found you because of dedication to whatever search terms they are obsessed with .
I sympathise, bob. I’ve had this issue with openDemocracy.net for years. We publish stuff under creative commons; aggregator sites take our stuff, republish in full, and get indexed in google news. we don’t. ever. We pubish 10 to 20 posts per day. many authors. in depth stuff. really good citizen journalism. big readership. But not right for google news…. I’d never thought of trying the lawyer route — I’ll have to give that a go.
Tony
Bob, whether you like it or not, or admit it, this here…it’s called a blog. And Google News has made it pretty clear: They don’t index blogs. Even blogs that get a lot of traffic. (Witness the thousands of blogs that get more traffic than you do and that also aren’t indexed.)
“Still, such second generation coverage doesn’t bring me any real traffic, I’m pretty sure.”
Can you not be bothered to install the Google Analytics for WordPress plugin to find out for sure?
“My posts here tend to average over 100 comments, which is pretty good.”
Do they really? I only see one post of 10 on your front page with over 100 comments. 3 of 10 on your second page. And 0 of 10 on your third page. But I guess, again, that actual stats would be too difficult for you…
By the way, here are the two lines of code to find out exactly how many comments, on average, your posts get:
https://www.bestwpthemez.com/wordpress/code-to-display-average-number-of-comments-per-post-in-wordpress-2849/
-Erica
“Bob, whether you like it or not, or admit it, this here…it’s called a blog. And Google News has made it pretty clear: They don’t index blogs. Even blogs that get a lot of traffic.”
TechCrunch, Mashable and Co get Indexed.
It is ironical that while Rupert is threatening to stop Google from indexing his sites, someone is complaining of not being indexed.
I do not want to believe that Google has a blacklist based on who they don’t like because it would be really bad if it is found to be true.
Techcrunch might be published on a blog platform but it’s not exactly a blog by any reasonable definition of that word. I, Cringely however being mostly opinion/commentary and written by one guy very much is a blog.
Except that half of the point of this article was that the articles on AOL about real estate aren’t being indexed, either.
I stopped taking Google “News” seriously a long time ago because roughly half the stuff they publish on my personalized news page comes from blogs! Sure, they might be blogs at Cnet, but they’re still blogs! If they were newsworthy, why would Cnet be classifying them as blogs?
Google news is utterly worthless. It publishes ridiculous stories according to ridiculous criteria. I even smell a lot of payola happening with Google news. I have no other explanation for why biased rumors originating at Fox News make it to my news page.
Get over yourself Bob!
Totally agree with Erica, Google News mainly indexes news sites, this is a personal blog, dare I say soapbox.
It may be an interesting and often insightful blog, but what it is NOT is a news site.
So hows the aluminium foil hard disk venture getting on just as everyone’s switching to SSDs? Haven’t heard much about that one in a while.
I agree with you on all accounts, Luke.
What’s up with the foil HDs?
Agreed. Bob, I love ya, but ever since your defense of the iPad scam, you seem to have become more arrogant and paranoid. The world doesn’t revolve around you — lighten up and have some fun, dude!
Bob’s so-called “defense” was just a continuation of the point he was making that there is still a big difference between legitimate journalists who check their stories and some bloggers who post stuff for entetainment value. The point being you can’t believe everything you read on the internet. In both Bob’s case and Jason’s, the truth is visible to those who are somewhat familiar with the authors and the subject matter. Those who were fooled should lighten up and accept that fact.
I’m with Erica here. An example is the Wikinews effort. To get covered in Google News, they were required to institute some editorial control: stuff just written and posted by a single person does not constitute news in their view. There are problems with that approach, but it’s a reasonable first-cut filter.
As to AOL, they are definitely indexing some stuff. Go to Google News and search for source:aol and you’ll see plenty of it. Why they’re not indexing the HousingWatch site, I don’t know, but you don’t either, so I’m not sure what your point is there. Is your thought that Google dropped it just because you work there?
If Google thinks this site isn’t high-quality news, you aren’t doing much with this article to demonstrate otherwise. You’ve spent your life not fitting in with the regular machinery of journalism. That’s fine, and it’s what makes you worth reading. But demanding the privileges without paying the price is disappointing.
This theory would be more believable if you listed any less-worthy bloggers who ARE indexed.
Here is an example. If you search Google Blogs for “google news blacklist”, the top in the list is a Louis Gray, who put a copy of Bob’s story up. Cringely’s blog itself is nowhere in the list. It seems Bob has a point…
But it you search ‘google news blacklist’ on google in general Cringely comes out on top, as it should be.
Louise is on top of the ‘Blog’ only search of google because its better formatted then Cringely in Louis’s copy of WordPress. He’s using RDF standards, tags, and other orderly metadata schemes that puts him on top where as Robert is diluted with ads, (dare I say junk, etc.).
But more to the point, how many people use Google News versus there own fav. dedicated news site? Its Google search and custom RSS feeds on iGoogle for me, and that includes the blogs and news sites I want -not what google thinks is news.
Having done quite a bit of research and implementation for inclusion on Google News recently, there are a couple of things that can either help or hurt being indexed. I have little doubt that there is a manual list and process to get into the news index as well (though I don’t belive this was always the case), most sites do have to request inclusion now from my experience. There is a form to do so in the Google webmaster tools suite.
The first thing to do is implement a special google news specific sitemap in xml format, the related docs are here:
https://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=74288
You might note that Google News certainly does index blog content and it is even listed as a particular genre of content
https://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/answer.py?answer=93992
Once your sitemap is ready I would submit it via the Google Webmaster tools for.
Note, you should update your robots.txt file on this site as it currently points to a sitemap.xml.gz file that 404s.
So there are some on site and through webmaster tools routes to look at for your site here, as for housingwatch I wonder if there is something more like this going on: http://techcrunch.com/2009/11/13/murdoch-google-bing-mexicanstandoff/
Keep up the good work,
Hardy
You are truly a legend in your own mind, Bob.
Next for the Google blacklist then I suppose all references to new Apple releases will magically evaporate!
No, but the Apple stories that make it to my Google News page are slowly becoming less and less flattering now that the strategic partnership between Google and Apple has expired. As always, you can bet that the most flattering stories about Google get top billing.
Here is the main reason why Google News is worthless: it fails to judge the newsworthiness of the stories it chooses. For the most part, I see the same schlock that all the major news outlets have on their front pages.
Google News doesn’t find the rare but high impact investigations published by Politico, Mother Jones or even the New York Times. Listen to the “News from outside the bubble” section of any of Harry Shearer’s Le Show episodes from the past two years. Google News will never be able to evaluate stories based on veracity, significance, and relevance!
Google News is evil! This is why I only use it to find out what propaganda I can expect to hear from co-workers on any given day. That’s all Google News is good for. It’s a propaganda meter.
Google long ago left the “don’t be evil” ethos in the dust. Now they’re just another massive corporation out to make as much money and screw as many people as they can. Luckily for them they still have a lot of good will, so it will be a while (5+ years) yet before most people have worked this out.
Who gives a damn about Google News? Isn’t it for people who’re too lazy or dumb for better media?
And why would anybody expect a ‘right’ to be indexed by some internet corporation? I’m sure they’re more concerned about their shareholders and ad customers than about their users or some web-writer’s ego. Apparently that’s how things are supposed to work.
Amen! You hit the nail on the head. Perhaps that should have been Bob’s theme for this column: recognize Google News for what it is. Google News is anything but a good source of news.
Years ago, when I was in grad school, I kept being called for jury duty. This didn’t start until after my first time on a jury, a case so frivolous, even the lawyers couldn’t keep straight faces. Being sane individuals, we the jury kicked the case to the curb. Right after that, I started to get jury notices in the mail. And every time I showed up, the same people were in the jury pool. So I asked the clerk, “Why am I being called all the time?” “Oh, I assure you this is a random process. We have a computer program that selects prospective jurors from a database of registered voters.” “If that’s the case, why am I seeing the same people every time I show up?” The clerk got very red in the face and repeated her assertion that it was a random process. Funny thing, right after that, I stopped getting jury notices. I can’t prove the selection program was weighted to select people whose previous behavior indicated they would make good jurors. But the circumstances certainly make me suspect it. It’s the same with Bob. He can’t prove a blacklist, but the circumstances are definitely suggestive.
Google general search doesn’t filter you – top results on the world “cringley” are “www.pbs.org/cringely/” and “www.cringely.com/”.
Nor does news.google.com – a search for “cringely” brings up your posts on sites such as ” or posts about you “NetworkWorld.com”.
Finally google blog search brings up your blog and your PBS page as ‘related blogs’ in a prominent position at the top of the page.
I admit it is strange that some blogs *are* listed on Google News, however they seem to be from places like “blogs.fortune.cnn.com” – so more like columnists than independent bloggers. What I found amusing was that the 3rd result and the first blog listed was “http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2010/03/10/the-richest-man-at-the-oscars/?section=magazines_fortune” where the writer spends at least half of the post, well, quoting you. I guess you should be flattered. Or something.
Should have been – ‘on sites such as ”NetworkWorld.com” or posts about you.’
Damn typos…
Say what’s with the silly formatting of the line starting with “3rd”? Some strange WordPress bug?
The text is justified.
“Google general search doesn’t filter you – top results on the world ‘cringley’ are ‘www.pbs.org/cringely/’ and ‘www.cringely.com/’.”
Wait. What? Are people actually suggesting that, since google doesn’t filter Bob out when you search for him specifically, that this is a non-issue?
Despite the suggestion by another commentor that people who use new aggregators are “lazy and stupid”, I use them because I’m incredibly busy and am interersted in view points that never would have occurred to me to search for in the first place. I’ve been reading Mr. Cringley for a VERY long time, so I was already aware that he existed, but I don’t hang on every word, searching for everything he’s ever written (nothing personal, Bob ;-)), so being pinged when he discusses a subjects I have an interest in is useful to me.
And he does have a valid point — not only are there some bloggers that wind up on Google news, but so do a lot of “op-ed” pieces. And what is a blog but one long op-ed?
Ultimately the solution is one I don’t see Google implementing — a way for users to set not just the kinds of news topics they’re interested in, but the sources. For example. I really could care less for so-called news sources from Fox, AP, the washington post (ah, how the mighty have fallen!), and would LOVE to be able to filter them out. Likewise I should be able to include “blogs” or whatever indivduals I would like as a part of the page, without losing the gems that can come up through the broader aggregation.
Anyway, thanks for the rant (and the chance to rant back a bit. 😉 )
Bob,
The issue could be your frequency of posting. Blogs that post more often tend to get more indexed. You post what… 2 times per week at most?
I see the same pattern in my sites… those that get updated often (multiple times per day) get tons of traffic, those that don’t hardly get any.
Google News, what’s that?
Yes. I’ve been reading Cringely since way before Google existed. Google search is a great way to find answers to specific questions but not a good source of credible news or educational material. The so-called “news” option was once centered around nntp newsgroups. So yes, what is Google News anyway?
Ironically, it is definitively not news.
“I don’t suppose it qualifies as evil, but it is definitely petty and in no way serves Google users, who should be appalled”
Then, what qualifies as evil ?
Bob, this IS evil.
Hi Bob,
Is this you (https://www.networkworld.com/news/2010/031510-did-uncle-sam-try-to.html). I just had a look for Cringely in google news UK and it seems, as you say, that only references to you are listed and lots of articles on networkworld.com. I believe like you that blogs are an essential form of news, more and more of the news stories I read are blog articles or articles linked from blog posts. Perhaps google is missing a trick and failing to provide a google blogs feature to their google news indexer. Perhaps you could highlight the idea and see if it floats.
Best Regards,
Mark.
You seem full of yourself, Mr. Cringely.
It’s pretty useless to complain about not being indexed by an entity that is not bound by the U.S. Constitution.
It’s also pretty useless to complain about a blogger’s boring rants by threatening to unsubscribe from his RSS. But I’m going to do it anyway.
During the 1970s I worked a lot in Africa where most of the countries weren’t that far from their colonial days. England, France, Germany, and Italy all had African colonies and in each of them installed a form of government that — in style at least – tended to endure past the departure of those colonial masters. This meant that one country had an English bureaucracy, another German, etc. The bureaucracy of Libya was, and still is, I believe, very Italian in character. But the worst bureaucracy of these was the one that gave us the word itself — the French bureaucracy, which was almost insurmountable in its complexity and lack of humor. And Google, my friends, feels very French.
C’mon, there are thousands of stringers across the country that are viewable via Google. For them to single you out is just plain mean.
While it is tempting to think that one is the center of the world and all people’s actions revolve around you, I wouldn’t jump to the conclusion that Google is out to get you. While I read your column, and lots of other people do, I don’t think you are important enough to Google to do any serious harm such as putting you on their “blacklist”.
An interesting test is this. If google does have a black-list, they can only pay attention to so much of the internet at a time. As such, you should be able to put up an article on an entirely different web-site and then check to see if it is indexing. If it indexes like you would expect, then suddenly after some time is no longer indexed, you probably have some good reason to suspect foul-play. However to make absolutely sure, start up another new website with an alias (not your name) and then check to see if it does the same thing.
Personally I think Google is the newest Microsoft. I don’t trust them. I feel like they view privacy with little regard. I think they play games with their search power too.
Bob has a point, regardless if you consider his blog site as news. Blogs and news seem to blur the lines these days. Also you can’t just immediately dismiss someones personal blog site as not news worthy if they are a known reporter and journalist like Mr Cringely.
A blog’s a blog.
“a blog’s a blog”
Really? Such insight. 😉 Again this depends on the site and the author. I read several software companies “blog” sites that only post news about their products. That is where you learn of new versions, tips, etc. That is news concerning the company.
Many blogs today are simply engines for company news and etc.
I wish Google would “black-list” me, would be nice to not feel like
everything a person does on the net is “indexed by Google”!
I’ve known for years the news we get in the USA is pretty bad. Its only real intent is to sell whatever they are advertising at the moment. During the elections 2 years ago I did a lot of research on some of the candidates and found the news coverage was horribly lacking and irresponsible.
My great hope for Google news is it would bring a more universal and balanced coverage of the news of the day. It has disappointed me deeply. Pick a news item and you will find the same wire story in 100’s of newspapers. Doesn’t anyone do original research and write original work on a news item? What has happened to professional journalism?
I don’t know if Google is black listing Bob Cringely or not. I do know they are not really advancing journalism or making its readers better informed. They are simply recycling the most popular stories which all pretty much the same.
As a USA citizen, I’d love to know what is really in the health care bill, and which of my elected representatives is pushing or blocking various parts of the bill. Google this topic and what do you get — garbage.
Google folks — if you are reading this stuff — I expect a lot better from you.
Too much emotion, too little facts. That’ what I’ve heard from a mate who was visiting the U.S. when something very important happened there – I guess it was Katrina.
Sick and tired from that big bunch of non-information he got when trying to hunt down the details in U.S. media, he finally switched to German sources he was used to and found the answers he was looking for …
I know I’ve seen your stuff from InfoWorld on Google News. Perhaps those stories are the evil twin Cringely from the 90’s come back again. Of course, I could be wrong about this and you could be right. Maybe Microsoft, Google, all the banks and mortgage companies and the Kinkos in your town are all out to get you.
Don’t worry, fair readers, I’m sure Bob has a plan too thwart them all though. He’s going to cobble together all those failed metal foil drives and the Winnebago using his X prize plans (damn…X prize people screwed Bob too and who is behind the X prize…Google of course). Then he and his family will zoom off to the moon where he will take over as head poobah. He’ll tweet and blog with no interference from all of the terrestrial entities that are out to get him.
Unfortunately, Bob will only dominate the moon for a short time. In short order, the evil twin Bob Cringely will find his way to the moon, knock him off, and take his place.
By the way Bob, I hear from my sources that you are blacklisted on Bai Du News too. Damn those wiley Chinese.
Since I’ve had the iPhone I no longer watch tv news or read google news or aggregated portals, instead I use the specific news apps or go to local news mobile sites directly. Most so-called news today are reported in an opinionated blog style anyway.
Hi, Bob. I work with Google News and wanted to respond to your post. Yes, the algorithms decide how stories are clustered and how articles are ranked, but humans (members of the publisher support team) decide which sites are included in the Google News index. They do so using a set of criteria. One of these is that a website have an editorial organization in place. Websites run by single writers can of course be included in such Google services as Web Search, Blog Search and Reader.
Google News indexes more than 25,000 news sources from across the world. Many of them write critical articles about Google, so I can assure you that we do not make inclusion decisions based on what’s written about our company. As for your specific comment about AOL, we include many of its websites in Google News, such as Engadget, Joystiq, DailyFinance and others. We have no record of anyone requesting that we include Housingwatch but would be happy to consider it. Anyone can submit an inclusion request for any news site via the following link:
https://www.google.com/support/news_pub/bin/request.py?contact_type=suggest_content
Thanks.
Chris, please take a look at my earlier post. There are a number of great journalist and columnist in the world. They are the ones who find the facts, do the research, and produce great reports. I would very much like it if Google would find these people in every world area, and catalog them and their stories.
Seeing the same AP story over and over again in today’s Google news does no one much good. I think you can provide the world better information, better journalism, and great perspectives. You won’t do this by plowing through 25,000 new sources. You have to be more focused. Find the best of the best in the profession and focus on their stuff.
John, thanks for the feedback. The goal of Google News is to provide a wide range of perspectives on the important news of the day by linking to publishers’ websites. Source diversity matters to us, so we’re constantly working on ways to improve.
Chris
Some examples from the perspective of a USA citizen.
I know we are not getting the full story on the mideast. It would benefit our society to get better, more complete information from that part of the world. The USA public donates huge amounts of money and support to people in many places in the world. Wouldn’t it be nice if some of that help made it to the mideast?
I know USA foreign policy systematically neglects parts of the world. It is a historical fact our foreign policy often favored large USA companies over the local interests of developing countries. If these facts were more readily available to the USA public, things could change for the better.
I can give other examples.
Sometimes automated systems can’t find the few great writers and columnists.
John
Housingwatch submitted.
Google is leaving China because they can’t abide censorship. But they have a blacklist, and you’re on it, and they got their clocks cleaned in China because they wouldn’t return search results for music downloads. So what’s up with them and why are they really leaving China?
[…] rubbed Eric or one of his upper level minions the wrong way – congratulations! – you’ve made the infamous Google blacklist – which means you don’t don’t show up at all on Google web search, unless […]
I’d find your argument more convincing if you looked at you exposure in a host of search engines and compared google, yahoo, bing, alta-vista etc… But, that said, there does seem to be some varying bias in the new sources that google picks (which suggests that it IS a pure algorithmic method that they are still tinkering with). You see some new sources become very popular for a few months and then they disappear … google is finding that page ranking news sources is several orders of magnitude harder than simple web sites.
What’s the difference between a Blog and News? What’s the difference between News and FOXNews? Beats the hell out me sometimes…
Google does index blogs and they sometimes appear on the front page – but not often… this in spite of their “we don’t index blogs” policy – it would be relatively easy to write a script to pull the google news page every thirty minutes and simply list and categorize their sources … that would tell you something whereas at the moment you don’t really have any evidence, but:
… why should you care what they think?
There’s no such thing as unbiased media. Google News is no exception. I haven’t wasted my time there since I realized that. If you want a news aggregator, try Digg, or even Fark. They’re both more informative.
Google may well be doing something simple, yet sneaky, like looking for words like ‘my’ and ‘I’ in the article. If you use the first person a lot, it’s an opinion piece at best, and unless a lot of news sites point at you, then they’re not going to touch you.
They also probably look for word correlations on articles between News sites, so unless what you write is similar, then you’re not a News site in the way they think about it (i.e. somebody who publishes Reuters stuff).
There’s also probably no ‘black list’. There could be a ‘white list’ and you’re not going to be on that.
So how is a blog different than an editorial or opinion piece at some news source?
Is it different due to association with the news source? Does Google index magazines that are semi news sources? Where does the New Yorker, Business Week, US News, etc fit in Google’s index algorithm?
I don’t class Cringely.com as a blog. It’s an editorial or opinion piece that strives to be accurate and is also widely read. However, it is not only that because it introduces new ideas and technologies to the readers. It is a tech news source that also includes the author’s reader-valued opinion.
When Google makes any decision regarding what to include/exclude from it’s news index, there will be errors in that decision. In Utopia, a piece should be indexed and placed on the Google page based on the average IQ of the readership. This would avoid tabloid/sensationalist style stories and authors.
I think you have a point here. Google sucks. But it’s better than all the rest, and as such, it is a search engine monopoly. It should, along with other powerhouses such as YouTube, be fair. It is not fair, neither is YouTube, and neither us craigslist, where valid posts are “flagged and removed” every day because of overzelous competetors.
Google doesn’t index flash or Ajax properly. I used to think Google was not indexing my website properly, but it was just because I didn’t have the proper stuff in my header or some such nonsense. I’m pretty sure it’s not indexing you for other reasons though..
Google is on a slippery slope if they are trying to define what “news” is and who is acceptable to provide it. If they really do have a blacklist (don’t index these “non-news” sources or competitors) or whitelist (only index these things we consider to be news) then they are teetering on the edge of a really high cliff.
As another reader mentions, there is a spectrum of “news”, and some sites and blogs fall into the semi-news category. They may have it in their collective brain that Google Reader handles all the semi-news.
Google News should index any sites or blogs that have a news-like quality to them. What they need to do is provide the tools (or algorithms) to let users (as a group) to qualify how news-like they view something to be and to let users (as individuals) to filter in/out those things they determine to be news-like or not.
Things like PageRank, Google Reader subscription #’s and stars, and the like *should* be getting things above the algorithmic watermark and into Google News results. Even if an identifiable post on a site isn’t really “news” in and of itself, if it is suddenly very popular then that fact alone *is* “news”, whether anybody reports it or not (why can’t Google News discover popularity and report it? Scoop!!).
This is all fine and dandy for me to discuss, but I don’t actually use Google News.
When I say “They may have it in their brain…”, the “They” refers to Google.
Bob, you’re on the front of the wave of the News business converting into the confederation of people who are extreme experts in their field. One of your articles last year actually inspired me to blog about that:
http://mcgonigle.us/bill/blog/articles/2009/05/22/a-model-for-better-more-competitive-newspapers
That blog post actually got some unexpected syndication (I CC license expecting nothing for my musings).
Anyway, Google News is only solving the easy problem of aggregating traditional news sources. You’d think the people at Google would be interested in tackling the harder problem, especially with the likes of Murdoch declaring them ‘enemy’.
I suspect you’re being excluded by definition, not by intention.
I agree that Google has gone over the edge of a precipice by attempting to define news.
time to create a Library of Congress universal web index that eats all of the search engines
[…] Is There a Google News Blacklist? My relationship with Google News has always run hot and cold. No make that cold and tepid. From the very beginning of Google News as an experiment back in 2001, they refused to index my work, which they said was my fault, not theirs (“they” being an algorithm attached to an e-mail box, of course). But new evidence has recently come to light suggesting to me that Google News has an actual blacklist. […]
The line between analysis and opinion is fuzzy. Although Bob’s format is blog-like, it has more thought and analysis behind it than the click generating opinions at cnet, etc.
But regardless, Google is a business that has every right to include and exclude whom they choose. It ism’t evil, petty maybe, but not evil. Apple just recently dumped iPhone apps made by a mouthy developer. If my business partner bad mouths me, I’ll dump him.
What I hate is all the noise on Google Finances, I thought it was cool at how they were showing news events affected the market price, but now it’s all just automated drivel they have there.
If Google were wise, they would make it easy for its users to block domains or news sources it dislikes.
Abuse of power is evil.
Google is somewhat evil.
So is Obama and company. He knew that 2:1 we are against his healthcare wealth grab. He pushed it down our necks.
Time for a peaceful overthrow.
SAME LIKE WIKIPEDIA CONSISTENTLY BLACKLISTING THE INQUIRER. THEN AGAIN, YOU CAN’T REALLY DEFEND THE INQUIRER – THEY AREN’T NEWS EITHER.
I guess McCarthy era is close enough, but McCarthy was a Senator, and it was the HOUSE Unamerican Activites Committee that got things rolling with Roebrt Kennedy and Nixon.
A pristine example of American double standards.
Censorship is fine, except when performed by the Chinese government.
Perhaps we do need bing after all
Did I hear someone say ‘search neutrality’…
Is there a google news blacklist?
Why wouldn’t there be? There is a person blacklist.
Now, some may be thinking, “Sure, but that’s not google news.” To which I would say, a blacklist is a blacklist. Censorship is a black and white ethical test. Anyone that will censor in one respect will censor in any respect.
Do you count it as 1000 readers per commenter or comment? Or is there a large number of commenter and it ends up being 1000 per comment when averaged out?
“I’m told by friends inside the Googleplex that I have enemies in high places there, which I find flattering.”
And just what is the cause of this animosity that may have caused you to be blacklisted? Such a serious charge should have more substantiation.
I read your blog from time to time and usually enjoy it, but this post seems a bit off.
Hey Bob,
I really enjoyed your work hosting the special “Revenge of the Nerds” years ago on PBS. I was happy to find your blog.
I always start my day with Google News and am trying to understand what you are experiencing.
I just went to Google News and typed “Cringely”. The first page of results had 4 articles written by you. Maybe that’s too little, but based on your description I was expecting zero.
I hope they don’t have a blacklist.
Hey Bob,
I found this to be an interesting that seems to elicit a pretty strong response based on the different comments posted.
I think that any post that gets people thinking is a good post.
Good job!
Hm… I am not sure this is so much the effort of a grand conspiracy, so much as the continuing problem of how to monetize news sources, plus with copyrighted published content, I wonder how much they are allowing google to index? (The google books issue comes to mind here…)
To the user above wanting to block domains: I just found the google blacklist extension, so you might try that. (Only for chrome so far, but here’s hoping.)
[…] According to Robert X. Cringely, III, (Mark C. Stephens is actually the third person to write under the Cringely name): If you want to figure how many people read a column from the number of comments, try multiplying by at least 1000. […]
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Interesting… there is always a lot of speculation around where or not there is a Google blacklist… i’m yet to be convinced either way..
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Before reading your article, I had no idea that such a list could exist, as a Google News blacklist. I always considered Google organization as leaning towards fairness and progressive outlook. Your article is disturbing. I don’t know what to think.
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I know for a fact that google has several black lists and it does not surprise me at all that they might have one for news. There is a general shift towards giving more authority and ranking power to brands for the rankings. I am sure they have some kind of algorithm that provides such benefits.
Is this a surprise that the Big G blacklists certain news carriers? Look at who rules the internet world, and you will see..