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What happened to Jewwatch?
Sometimes the "right" objective search algorithm gives odious results. This was
the case for the main page of the hate Web site Jewwatch.com, which for a long
time was top ranked or near top ranked in Google
search pages for the keyword Jew.
Jewwatch is most definitely a hate Web site. It tells viewers (currently) that
Leon Trotsky was a Zionist and that the United States government is "occupied by
Zionists." It reproduces classic hate literature such as the "International Jew"
and the
Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Curiously, Jewwatch doesn't mention the
keyword
Jew very often and it doesn't seem to have a lot of Backlinks.
Activists have tried to get the Jewwatch.com listing removed since 2004, There
is a petition calling for removal of this site from Google
listings. Nonetheless, Google
insisted that there was nothing it could do, because search engine results have
to reflect the results of their algorithm (see Google explanation).
Seth Finkelstein wrote about the pros and cons of banning Web sites and the
issue of Google bombing at about that time -Seth Finkelstein on Jewwatch and
Google bombing back in May of 2004, and there the matter stood for about 5
years.
I thought (and still think) that the better way to "clean up
the Web" is to promote good Web pages and make good Web pages. Others thought
the same it seems, so now the Wikipedia "Jew" page is number 1, and my own
Jew page is number three.
Recently a renewed campaign to get 500,000 people to
call on Google to ban Jewwatch was started.
I was skeptical that it would yield any results given Google's adamant refusal
to tamper with its algorithm. But is is a fact - Jewwatch is now listed around number
70. How did that happen? Nobody is saying yet. Some possibilities:
1- Google yielded to pressure and put the kibbosh on Jewwatch with a special
filter. They aren't letting on.
2- Google changed its algorithm (we know they are always doing that) so that
Jewwatch just happened to fall down to around number 70. Could be.
3-Rankings now take into account personal preferences of Google users, and these
put Jewwatch in the cellar.
Nobody knows. It would be really nice if there was an algorithm that could
identify hate web sites which are not really relevant to a query and give rid of
them, but I suspect that is wishful thinking.
Of course, there are still a couple of hate pages at the bottom of the first
page of Google
results for keyword Jew. That could be fixed by linking to more constructive and
informative pages and making more such pages, if Google
and the world are fair. Banning a site will probably just result in having the
same materials transferred to another Web site that is then peddled in the same
way. It is not clear if Jewwatch achieved its popularity by fair means or by
Black Hat SEO and Google
bombing.
Ami Isseroff
March 16, 2009
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