Dude, where’s my Google?

I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I have to take notice when events coincide. As many people noticed yesterday, my Hot Abercrombie Chick post had a quick rise to prominence on Google, ranking at #1 for the query "Abercrombie Chick" and #2 for "Hot Abercrombie Chick." I was shocked to find that this page was no longer in any of the results for these searches. On the other hand, the post on Wizbangblog still maintains its original rank on both queries. In fact, my site has been removed from Google’s index while his remains. Check the screengrabs (click for more detail):

search for my post
Search for my post
search for the response to my post
Search for response post

Google’s policy about page removal is quite explicit:

Except in instances involving legal issues or spam, Google’s policy for removing a page from our index requires that we obtain the permission of that page’s webmaster. This prevents competitors from sabotaging each other’s listings.

I’m assuming my page is not spam. Without any emails from Google, I can only assume that it has been removed for legal reasons. Has Amanda or some other party emailed Google to remove my allegations? I’ve sent an email to Google to inquire.

April 23: The page is back in the index as of sometime this morning. Looking back on the whole incident, it’s pretty amazing that Google had the page in the index within 2 days, along with its PageRank. They have been caching weblogs within a few hours but this is the first time I’ve seen an individual weblog post go online in that amount of time. I now render this post defunct.

April 22, 2004 #
9 comments

9 Comments

  1. EricaLucci
    Posted April 22, 2004 at 1:21 pm | Permalink

    You have WAY too much time on your hands, but I love that you’re doing all this!

  2. Kevin
    Posted April 22, 2004 at 11:39 pm | Permalink

    If you’re going to complain about my blog ranking at Google you could at least spell it correctly - it’s Wizbang.

    If you’re trying to figure out why I have the top spot, just check Technorati.

  3. cameron
    Posted April 22, 2004 at 11:55 pm | Permalink

    Sorry to have misspelled your weblog name, Kevin. I think you’re misinterpreting my post though — I don’t really care about my placement in the rankings, I was just drawing attention to the fact that my post had been removed from their index. No matter how far you page through the search results, you’ll never find my page. The first image above shows that the page does not exist in their index.

    This is counter to what they had in their index yesterday which means that it was either automatically or manually removed at some point. I’m assuming it will come back, but it’s still strange behavior.

    As for your Technorati profile, you’re wrong. According to the Google toolbar, Overstated has a PageRank of 6/10 while Wizbangblog is 5/10. PageRank is not calculated by the total number of links, but rather by the total PageRank conferred by those links.

  4. jkottke
    Posted April 23, 2004 at 9:48 am | Permalink

    Your page seems to be back in Google.

    If you’re trying to figure out why I have the top spot, just check Technorati.

    Jesus Christ, put it back in your pants, Kevin.

  5. Drew
    Posted April 23, 2004 at 12:07 pm | Permalink

    Is Kevin Amanda?

  6. Pete
    Posted April 23, 2004 at 1:55 pm | Permalink

    Isn’t “removed” an awfully strong term, here, Cameron?

    A page disappears for ONE DAY from the index, and it’s assumed that Amanda has a lawyer? There are a lot of good technical reasons why that page could’ve disappeared for a bit.

    Here’s one that could have something to do with it: http://www.searchengineposition.com/info/Articles/GoogleDanceSyndrome.asp

  7. cameron
    Posted April 23, 2004 at 7:36 pm | Permalink

    Pete, I agree. I was surprised that it made it into the index so quickly. I’ve seen sites move around quite a bit over a few days time, but this is the first time I’ve ever noticed a page be recognized and then suddenly disappear (meaning that typing the URL into the search box returns a response like the one above). A few hours before I posted this entry I checked a few of the Google data centers and the post was appearing in every one I looked at.

    It was a pretty risky bet, but given that I’d never seen Google react like that before, I decided to push all of my chips onto the table. It.. erm.. didn’t pay off.

  8. decent
    Posted August 15, 2004 at 9:14 pm | Permalink

    You’re domain shows up fine in google. Strangely enough, I’ve witnessed pages disappear suddenly from google although very seldom. interesting post

  9. Denise Chantal
    Posted September 20, 2004 at 6:04 am | Permalink

    Hallo friends! Really nice place here. I found a lot of interesting stuff all around. Just what I was looking for. Great joy!

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