Used to be that if you did a NEWS search on Google with the following syntax: hudson dredging
you would get links to pages back that were, as you’d expect, NEWS. Not anymore.
Now you INTERMITTENTLY get links, a slew of them, apparently sponsored by General Electric and their lackeys ahead of any other news stories listed.
Since these GE-sponsored links are obviously NOT news, why is Google allowing them to be listed ahead of the news? Money? Are they intended to be ads highlighting General Electric’s supposed public service efforts? How much is this costing General Electric? Why don’t they appear every search? Is Google screwing up by having them not appear after every search or is the intermittent aspect part of some plan to dupe users?
But wait, there’s more. Please, read on:
Used to be that if you did a general Web search on Google with the following syntax: hudson dredging (no News sub-category, just a straight search)
you would get pages back that were a mixture of stuff - government pages, blog pages, informational material, etc. Not anymore, though.
Now you get links EVERY TIME, a slew of them, apparently sponsored by General Electric and / or their hand puppets ahead of any other links or stories listed. Are these GE-sponsored links meant to show how great General Electric is? Some new, twisted form of self-serving public service announcement that are hand-crafted by paid lackeys? They are most certainly NOT links to news stories. Curiouser and curiouser…
Have a look at the following links as returned by the aforementioned Google search:
GE’s Hudson River PCB Dredging Project
GE is performing the Hudson River Dredging Project, one of the largest environmental dredging project in the US, with the approval and oversight of EPA (Note: makes GE sound like they know what they’re doing, eh? - Hudson)
Scientific Reports (Note: not a peep about who paid said scientists - Hudson)
Contact us
Tunnels at GE Plant Collect PCBs
Community Newsletters Archive (Hmmm… GE, the caring corporation? - Hudson)
GE and Beacon Institute Collect
Watch Dredging
What are PCBs? (Note: not a mention of health risks - Hudson)
GE Proposes Full-Scale Dredging (Huh? What, like it was GE’s idea to clean up the Hudson? - Hudson)
Yes, ALL of the above are General Electric-sponsored links that show up AHEAD of other links or current news stories regarding the Hudson River and dredging.
How much money is being spent to get these links inserted ahead of all other results? Is GE nervous about something? About news stories regarding General Electric, PCBs and their tooth & nail fight to AVOID dredging the river? This takes spinning the news to a new and downright funky level. Get the spin in ahead of the news… Wow, what a concept.
What I’m really curious about is this: with GE’s history of manipulating search engine results, how many unflattering news stories about General Electric are currently being excluded from the overall search results? And how would we know?
Please also keep the following two questions in the back of your mind: (1) how often are search engine results filtered based on a corporation’s request?; and (2) how much information is suppressed by Google and / or other search engines every day?
GE and Search Engine Shenanigans - Mach I
General Electric’s Credibility Problem
PCBs and You - The Science Behind the Rhetoric
Related posts:
- Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine
- Is General Electric Prepared To Sue To Prevent More Dredging? General Electric’s PR Firm Gives Ambiguous Answer
- General Electric, PCBs and The Outlaw Josey Wales: Part Deux
- GE Continues To Whine About Dredging the Hudson (But At Least a Bit More Quietly)
- General Electric Responds To Dredging Report Through Its PR Firm