ResourceBlog Article: 90391701

contact us \| suggestion

Receive the weekly sampler of posts and "Resource of the Week".
Subscribe »

My Account »

If you find ResourceShelf useful, please supply a testimonial »

Home > ResourceBlog > Article

« All ResourceBlog Articles

Saturday, 1st March 2003

90391701

Web Search--Google
Source: The Register
Google's Removal of Web Content
Maybe it's censorship or maybe it's a business deciding how to handle a situation? You decide. Seth Finkelstein documents the situation regarding Google's removal of a text only web page containing sick, VERY sick, content. The page contains no images. Protests from people in Chester, U.K. protested enough via phone, fax, and e-mail that Google to remove the material from their database. The page was ranked number two and surrounded by pages promoting tourism in Chester. The actual page is still on the web. Simply go to AltaVista, AllTheWeb, and the Inktomi databases. Let me repeat, this page is not funny and is in very bad taste. Nevertheless, if Google (or any engine) is going to remove specific text pages or entire sites because someone doesn't approve of them, I would imagine more pages are on the way out. It's very easy to forget that the search engine business is just that, a business. Yes, you can paid for an ad or per url to have a page indexed but that still doesn't gurantee where the page will fall in the results list. As much as the public thinks that Google is "the" answer, it's not. Google is a business, it's not a library. Would a library collect the material on the page in question? Hardly. However, if libraries removed books or pages from books because someone or some group didn't like what they had to say we would have a major problem...The good news is that you have choices. If you don't like a web engine for whatever reason(s) (content, politics, advertising, etc.) try another. Actually, that's not a bad idea regardless of your feelings. Also, develop your own collection of web sites and have them handy. Use non-commecial tools like the LII, Infomine, and RDN. They're not only useful as directories but work very well as collection building resources.
See Also: The Full-Text of Seth Finkelstein's Report

blog comments powered by Disqus

« All ResourceBlog Articles

FreePint Family

A family of resources to help information workers be more effective, raise the value of information in their organisations and contribute to success. Read more »

Latest Family Articles:

Quilting big data threads
Thursday, 24th May 2012

Recently I have found myself cooing over visualisation maps (and heat maps) of health and well being resources. The content rich data is overlayed with mapping technologies, and some interesting themes and patterns are emerging.

The fallacy of information overload
Wednesday, 23rd May 2012

A lot of the talk around social media in the last year has been around information overload. Social media has provided us with new and exciting ways to create content. But it has also meant learning new ways to manage and engage with social media tools. Are we teetering on the edge of an information overload precipice?

Information overload: fact, fantasy or filter failure?
Wednesday, 23rd May 2012

Information overload is a figment of your imagination. Or a failure of your filter. Or a symptom of your technological submissiveness. Depends on who you ask.

Newsdesk: tracking millions of pieces of information a day
Tuesday, 22nd May 2012

What if you had to sort through 3.5 million articles and social media posts a day and try to pull out the most relevant items for your organisation? What if you then had to cobble it all together into something readable for your top groups and executives in your organisation?

Alacra Compliance adds managerial oversight
Tuesday, 22nd May 2012

Alacra Compliance saves time by aggregating information from both free and fee-based sources and enabling users to conduct an accurate federated search across these sources (coined “simultaneous search” by Alacra).

All Family Articles »
Family Articles by Category »

Tell us what you're working on,
and we'll talk to you about how FreePint can help »

FreePint Family Testimonials

"The free content from FreePint helps me to stay informed of trends. My researchers call it an "uncanny ability to find these details". ..."

More testimonials »

Subscribe to the ResourceShelf Newsletter and receive the weekly sampler of posts and Resource of the Week.

Find out more »

ResourceShelf sponsored by:

Article Categories

Search News (9339)
Source File (9518)
Web 2.0 (2568)

All Article Categories »