Google screenshot published by WUWT
The search engine Google.com was blocking the word "climategate" from its autosuggestion routines, and appears to be still doing so.
Screenshots published by Ian Wishart of The Briefing Room, and Anthony Watts of WattsUpWithThat, show that when a user tries to spell out the word "climategate," even when he spells it out almost completely, the Google routine fails to suggest the word--unless that word is part of the user's prior search-engine history. Instead, the autosuggestion routine returns "Climate Guatemala" and "Climate Guatemala City."
Bing screenshot by WUWT
Trials of a search on the word "climategate" on Microsoft's new Bing search engine produce no such problem.
The Yahoo! and AltaVista search engines do not provide autosuggestion routines; AltaVista retains a user's search history.
Within three hours of first noticing the problem, Watts reported that Google appeared to have restored "climategate" to the list of search words returnable by its autosuggestion routine. But tests by this Examiner conducted at 8:00 a.m. EST reveal that the problem remains.
Google.com has been accused before of interfering with its own search algorithms in order to interfere with searches for material deemed "not politically correct." The possibility also exists that the problem might remain on USA Google servers but not on servers in member states of the Commonwealth of Nations.
UPDATE: At about 5:45 p.m. EST, commenters here and at Digg.com noted that the problem seemed to be resolved. Re-test of the Google autosuggestion routine now yields "climategate" after a few keystrokes, as one would normally expect. This, of course, begs the question of why the autosuggestion should have been problematic to begin with.
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Comments
When vendors like Google begin to act like the arm of the (global?)government reminiscent of 1984 and other distopian novels we should collectively shun their services and use alternative search engines like bing, AltaVista, Ask or Yahoo. That is the beauty of competition. We should use the power of the consumer to pressure advertiser to stop supporting them; thus impacting their revenue stream.
Just did a Google search using the keyword, "climategate", and the search returned URLS. Then I searched using common mistyping errors like "cilmategate" and "climategeat". Google did not suggest the correct spelling as just as Terry cited in the above blog. We should not stand for this tacit manipulation from Google! They must remain an neutral honest broker.
I noticed this yesterday. I wondered why "climategate" brought up "climate guatemala". This was not the case several days ago. I am tired of people deciding what I should know or not know.
I suggest everyone else who feels like me move to Bing. It seems to be comparable. I seldom used it, because I was used to Google. Google and their censorship can go to ----.
The best thing about the internet WAS the fact you could sift through and decide for yourself what to think. Thanks for killing that freedom Google. IM going to change my tool bar now!
Autosuggest is still not prompting climategate for me, either. (My IP address in Wash. DC)
However, when I tried the two-word search term: google climategate, you guys are the first result.
Bravo, Examiner!
I noticed the same thing a few days ago.
Bing here I come.
Maybe if Google looses business they'll think twice about censoring their customers.
I can't help thinking that a real reporter would have called Google for a comment. There are so many tinfoil hats on the hatrack that you don't want to grab one and put it on by mistake.
Autosuggest is still not prompting climategate for me, either. (My IP address in Wash. DC)
However, when I tried the two-word search term: google climategate, you guys are the first result.
Bravo, Examiner!
I noticed that as well. I'm using Bing.
Autosuggest is still not prompting climategate for me, either. (My IP address in Wash. DC)
However, when I tried the two-word search term: google climategate, you guys are the first result.
Bravo, Examiner!
You're all full of it, including the writer. Search suggestions are determined by an algorythm based soley on search traffic, NOT the personal whims of some "politically correct" editor. As soon as Google logs enough searches for the word climategate, it will be included in both the near miss spelling suggestions and the drop-down prompts, just as it is now on Bing. Is Bing a better search engine? Maybe. But not because it is less bias.
People with a little bit of knowlege are really dangerous.
Really, Hurlbut, do you have any evidence that Google "removed" or "restored" the term based on political motiviations -- other than your own political proclivities? Didn't think so. Welcome to the new journalism.
On news.google.co.uk all you have to type is 'C' and Climategate comes up first.
Really.. well over 10 million Climategate searches in one day and google give me Climate Guatemala as a auto complete..
This is completely silly. I stumbled on your article while trying to find out about the climate in Guatemala, but figured I'd try it. Climategate (a fool's delusion to begin with) popped right up in my Google suggestions. So, well...either your small voice undid one facet of the great liberal, socialist, fascist conspiracy, or you were just silly, paranoid and wrong.
The same thing is happening in Australia where I live. "climategate" returns "Guatemala". I thought it rather odd. This blog may be onto something. So we now have "climategate" (because of the massive climate fraudS). We have "mediagate" (because of the MSM black out.... they forgot to question the science... I guess that is a direct result of employing leftist journalists). Now we have "Googlegate" (becuase they cannot stand their own liberal views being propagated.
Oh well, off to bing.
Correction:
...Now we have "Googlegate" (becuase they cannot stand their own liberal views being CHALLENGED).
Likely issues with databases updating, caching issues, and traffic buckets.
I have been receiving Google News Alerts for "Climategate," That is how I found out about this article after checking my email.
I've been watching this Google issue for awhile and provided my thoughts in an earlier WUWT post. Google was playing games with the issue at first, but has begun to allow the natural sequence of events to occur…
My hope is that this is a beta example of how the whole Climategate scenario will play out – at first the MSM and AGW comrades in arms will play every outer barrier “card” available to them, but eventually the barrier will begin to fall and come under siege.
Contrary to how the left (sorry AJ) would perceive the development of this story, the worldwide population that has been beaten over the head with this “green” movement and AGW is sick and tired of the “holier than thou” attitude put forth by such advocates.
People have had enough and this is Global Warming’s Y2K moment – the party is over.
still a problem here in Australia
It worked for me fine, just now at 7:00PM, PST.
Still a problem in Australia 8:00pm AEDT
so much for "do no evil"
Google.com.au
Search "climategate" on the web returns 13.7m+ hits, search from Australian pages 10k
Seems Australians have wool stuffed in their ears
2:00 Am on the West Coast Google is still censoring the results. Type in Climategate get climate Guatemala and if you use the past week option you get 37+ million hits on Climategate. While climate crooks are hiding the decline Google is hiding the incline
Do no evil? The ends do not justify the means!!!
Maybe Google uses special AlGorethms for climate related searches.
Guatemala - 7:00 am local time, Monday November 30: Google US is still not autosuggesting Climategate, but takes one there if the whole word is typed
hahah it's still doing it for me this morning at 7:30 am, although last night, it was returning climategate.
LOL
This is still happening at 11:07 CST on 11/30/09. Funny that climategate has 12.1 Million hits while Climate Guatamala only has 4.2 Million... and funny how even after I type it, they still don't autocomplete that word. And funny that you don't see any articles with that in the title on their news page.
1st of december and climategate in google australia is coming up Climate Guatamala. I thought this stuff only happened in china!!
Nov 30 @8:49PST -- Google still blocking climategate as autosuggestion.
Doesn't work for me either. Maybe this is past of googlegate!
YouTube is doing the exact same thing....
GOOGLE SEARCH RESULTS
CLIMATEGATE 20,800,000
"GLOBAL WARMING" 9,980,000
Google auto-suggest feature does not work with climategate at all yet global warming appears after typing in "Gl". Cover up !
@Michael: The weird thing is that, while the autosuggestion for "climategate" is blocked for the overall search engine, "climategate" appears early in the suggestions for Google News.
Bad news: Bing.com no longer recognizes "climategate" as an autosuggestible search word.
Yahoo will suggest “do you mean Climate gate” seperated into two words. That has to be a purposeful obfuscation by someone at Yahoo to limit direction to climategate articles.
If you type climateg it suggests “climategard windows”.
Using Bing when you type climateg you get an auto suggest of climateguard. Climategate is presented only when you starting typing as “climate-gate”. Why would a dash be required?
I think we need to direct some energy into exposing what is now becoming “googlegate”.
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