Posted on 03/17/2006 5:40:36 PM PST by grundle
Web Site Files Complaint Against Google
Mar 17 6:36 PM US/Eastern
By MICHAEL LIEDTKE AP Business Writer
SAN FRANCISCO
Google Inc.'s mysterious methods for ranking Web sites came under attack Friday in a lawsuit accusing the online search engine leader of ruining scores of Internet businesses that have been wrongfully banished from its index.
The civil complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose by KinderStart.com, seeks to be certified as a class action representing the owners of all Web sites blacklisted by Google's Internet-leading search engine since January 2001.
KinderStart, a Norwalk-based Web site devoted to information about children, says it was dropped from Google's index a year ago without warning.
"The world is becoming increasingly 'Googlized,'" said Gregory Yu, a lawyer for KinderStart. "For most people, that has been a good thing, but not for everyone."
A Google spokesman said the company hadn't seen the suit and had no immediate comment.
KinderStart alleges Google has engaged in anticompetitive behavior and misled the public by positioning its search engine as an objective source for finding Internet content. The suit seeks unspecified financial damages and a court order that would require Google to change its ways.
The case aims at Google's heart _ its tightly guarded formula for ranking Web sites.
Google's system strives to elevate in search results the Web sites with content most relevant to a request. Because Google handles far more search requests than its rivals, its ranking system can make or break Web sites without a well-known domain name.
With the stakes so high, Web sites assigned a low Google ranking are constantly trying to elevate their standing, and an entire cottage industry has formed surrounding search engine optimization. Some sites resort to dirty tricks, hoping the shenanigans will fool Google into highlighting their Web links.
Google regularly tweaks its search formula to weed out the mischief makers _ sometimes called "Black Hats." In the worst cases, Google exiles the manipulative Web sites, a practice that has become known as being sent to "the sandbox" for the equivalent of a children's time out.
KinderStart's lawsuit alleges Google's policing efforts have penalized Web sites that have done nothing wrong. To make matters worse, the suit alleges the banished sites can't determine how they can restore their standings because the company doesn't explain its actions.
Mountain View-based Google has previously defended its right to revise its search formula however it sees fit.
In 2003, Google persuaded a federal judge to dismiss a case filed by Oklahoma City-based Search King Inc. after its search ranking abruptly fell. Google argued its search ranking formula represented an opinion protected by the First Amendment, and U.S. District Judge Vicki Miles- LaGrange agreed.
This time, KinderStart is the one making accusations of free-speech violations _ in Google's case, by reducing the traffic sent to Web sites that have been wrongfully punished.
KinderStart said its traffic plunged by 70 percent after Google dropped it. At its peak, KinderStart's visitors viewed more than 10 million Web pages per month, according to the suit.
Yu hopes to prove Google has become an "essential facility" that should be required to warn Web sites before dropping them from the index. "We don't really feel there is enough transparency and openness in a service that has become so important," Yu said.
Google has always been tightlipped about how its search engine's works, maintaining the secrecy is essential to its success.
So? Nobody has a right to be listed by a private company. It might suck, but what law could google have broken?
Considering they contribute to Democrats, who cares what law they broke?
It's a civil suit. They don't have to have broken any laws. The contention is KinderStart alleges Google has engaged in anticompetitive behavior and misled the public by positioning its search engine as an objective source for finding Internet content.
The Michelin guides appear to favor French cuisine. Mickey D should lawyer up and go for it.
Still, if you're having a specific problem with a Microsoft product, don't bother searching for the answer at Microsoft.com. Thier site search engine is the worst on the internet.
You have to go to Google, type in the specific problem and add "Microsoft.com" on the end.
You'll get the right page at Microsoft.com every time.
This is pure B.S. That web site has very bad HTML coding. No meta tags. 'Nuff said from me.
With all due respect, there are plenty of examples of web sites with bad or no meta tags, terrible layout and amateurish html that consistently rank in the top ten.
Meta Tags have very little of the value they once had when it comes to rankings. There are many other factors involved now. Site design (badly written html) has little to do with ranking unless the design prohibits easy site navigation.
You are right of course, but I still don't think they should be sued over it.
Again, with all due respect, meta tags have little to do with page rankings now. Content is king, links from various similar web sites are very important, no flash, updating content in a timely manner. These are very important to page ranking once Google releases your site from the sand box.
Meta tags are still looked at, they just have a much smaller influence on rankings than they did just 3-4 years ago, at least for Google rankings.
Anybody can sue anyone for anything... THe likelyhood of winnig is sorely diminised based on the lawsuit though.
I only use Clusty!
I agree. I have stopped using Google and switched to Clusty. Probably giving up something, but I'll use the Googster in a pinch.
Good man! We need more like you!
Eventually google will feel the pinch (maybe, if they're anything like the average liberal socialist, reality will have little effect upon them).
If they were used in their originally-intended way, then yes
But what happened was that wise-guys would spam their meta-tags with all sorts of irrelevant key words in the hopes of getting people to come to their web page (even though the web page had no content that was actually relevant to what the user was looking for).
Google is used because users are able to find what they are looking for. If they find that sites they would have wanted to find are not listed on google, or their searches turn up too many irrelevant sites, they will start using some other search engine that gives them better results. This is why google has an incentive to "blacklist" sites that try to spam their way into peoples search results
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