Wednesday 21 November 2018

The Google Hole


They say that the INTERNET (mad spell check correction) never forgets but it sometimes loses things never to be found again. This happened with a review of Give Us Back the Bad Roads by John Waters which I wrote some weeks back.
bad roads

I liked the book and I said so and it turned up on Google’s first page after the booksellers. Well it was the only review or the only review by someone who had actually read the book. For a few days it stood there and then disappeared. What happened? Did it move to the back of the class where it belongs? Or did it fall into the memory hole of Googles:
Some results may have been removed under data protection law in Europe.

It seems that, as a protection from calumny and detraction, by making representations you can have search hits removed. John Waters is not loved by the Irish media and will never get a review in the papers even though he was a columnist for 25 years in the Irish Times. My little moiety of oxygen must be expunged.

Google cut the youtube line for the pro-life campaign in the referendum which John Waters supported. (If we only had old California over here.)

The Google hole is probably used extensively by publicists to eliminate negativity for their clients. In the internet of commerce it’s nice to be nice.

From 2013 a couple of Theo Dorgan (poet) reviews whose evil fetch had be exorcised:

theo waits for herod

move st.patricks day

2 comments:

john doyle said...

I just googled this string -- John Waters "give us back the bad roads" -- and your post popped up as the 7th entry on the first page of results. I just did it again -- down to 8th place, or else I counted wrong the first time. Happy Thanksgiving.

ombhurbhuva said...

Hi John,
Well, well, upon my word it’s back. It must have fallen down behind the filing cabinet. Here it’s no.8 on page 2. In Durham where John Waters is a household name it’s no.6/7 on the first page. Shall we call it the ‘mean-girl algo’?
The odd thing is that looking at Google analytics I see that today I’ve had a visit from Luxembourg originating at the European Parliament. I have no comment to make at this time.

And a Happy Thanksgiving to you too,
Michael