A friend and professional colleague of mine was involved in an unfortunate “road rage” incident about 4 years ago. His wife was driving in a car ahead of his, when he saw her vehicle being monstered by some idiot who was tailgating and then swerved in front and hit the brakes, causing her to brake hard, to avoid an accident. My friend feared for the safety of his wife and kids, and basically went ape-shit, which was quite out of character for him. He grabbed the guy and hit him with a torch. Indefensible and regrettable, and he was duly found guilty (though escaped formal conviction) and was fined. He also had sanctions from his professional body.

That should have been the end of it, but although this happened 4 years ago, this incident, as reported in The Age newspaper, is the first hit if you Google his name. This is followed by various other entries, espousing his professional credentials and achievements.

So if anyone Googles his name, (as patients and potential employers often do) the first thing they learn about him is this road-rage incident 4 years ago.

To me this is unjust. How does a 4 year old newspaper article take precent above professional credentialing, and is it possible for him to get this entry deleted? If the answer is “Yes, for a fee”, how is this not blackmail?

‘coz more people click and link to the newspaper entry than the other entries.

pesce.del.giorno said:

A friend and professional colleague of mine was involved in an unfortunate “road rage” incident about 4 years ago. His wife was driving in a car ahead of his, when he saw her vehicle being monstered by some idiot who was tailgating and then swerved in front and hit the brakes, causing her to brake hard, to avoid an accident. My friend feared for the safety of his wife and kids, and basically went ape-shit, which was quite out of character for him. He grabbed the guy and hit him with a torch. Indefensible and regrettable, and he was duly found guilty (though escaped formal conviction) and was fined. He also had sanctions from his professional body.

That should have been the end of it, but although this happened 4 years ago, this incident, as reported in The Age newspaper, is the first hit if you Google his name. This is followed by various other entries, espousing his professional credentials and achievements.

So if anyone Googles his name, (as patients and potential employers often do) the first thing they learn about him is this road-rage incident 4 years ago.

To me this is unjust. How does a 4 year old newspaper article take precent above professional credentialing, and is it possible for him to get this entry deleted? If the answer is “Yes, for a fee”, how is this not blackmail?

Is your friend also going to ask for all back issues of the newspaper to be destroyed as well?

BTW, this may be of interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

Personally, I am not a fan of sanitising history.

Our reputations precede us.

I shouldn’t think it’s possible to get the Google link or webpage deleted. There’s a “right to be forgotten” law in Europe but AFAIK it doesn’t apply anywhere else.

maybe try writing a letter to google saying that the search results effect said persons ability to continue life normally, or something along those lines

you could try obtaining solicitor advice

Carmen_Sandiego said:

BTW, this may be of interest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_be_forgotten

Personally, I am not a fan of sanitising history.

+1

CrazyNeutrino said:

maybe try writing a letter to google saying that the search results effect said persons ability to continue life normally, or something along those lines

you could try obtaining solicitor advice

or try going to your local Federal Parliament Member and ask advice there

CrazyNeutrino said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

maybe try writing a letter to google saying that the search results effect said persons ability to continue life normally, or something along those lines

you could try obtaining solicitor advice

or try going to your local Federal Parliament Member and ask advice there

install dash cams too

but as I see it, the matter has become unfair

>To me this is unjust. How does a 4 year old newspaper article take precent above professional…..”

……..it is in the media for, in-great-part, the purpose of ‘entertainment’ (pretending to be informative no doubt), the wigs too and police don’t mind these things becoming entertainment, for the full spectrum of people out there, quite a few of which are dumber than dogs, or more trouble than, but to be fair the contrast is unfriendly toward canines.

It might be some comfort to know that very few sane people get much of their reality from media at all. Nor does the average half-intelligent person think much of that in the media is representative of reality at all.

Mostly the media (the apparatus more broadly too) works through the power to intimidate, like an AK47, behind a curtain or pillow.

A word of warning pesce – I quickly found the article simply on the basis of the info you gave in the OP :) If you want the article forgotten, best not to post too many details about it on the internet.

Bubblecar said:

A word of warning pesce – I quickly found the article simply on the basis of the info you gave in the OP :) If you want the article forgotten, best not to post too many details about it on the internet.

in that case no one should try searching the article as it will add hits and continue to place it first

seek federal parliament member advice/ or legal advice

poikilotherm said:

‘coz more people click and link to the newspaper entry than the other entries.

Is that how it works? In that case there’s not much hope for him. Salacious issues are almost more interesting that dry professional credentials.

Might not be possible without lots of effort but perhaps he could create something with his name in it and continually click on it to bring it to the top of the Googe search on his name.

>… word of warning……”

Aren’t you now projecting and adding weight to the intimidation?

pesce.del.giorno said:

poikilotherm said:

‘coz more people click and link to the newspaper entry than the other entries.

Is that how it works? In that case there’s not much hope for him. Salacious issues are almost more interesting that dry professional credentials.

Yes it is how it works. So if he knows that this is how it works, it is now his task to make the other pages of interest precede the article. Perhaps his own website, optimised.

transition said:

>… word of warning……”

Aren’t you now projecting and adding weight to the intimidation?

? No, I was just pointing out that he’d included enough information to make it easy to find the article.

There wouldn’t be any harm in contacting Google with a link delete request – the worst they can do is say no :)

I doubt that Fairfax would delete the archived article though. You can’t really expect news media to censor accurate, non-defamatory news merely because it’s embarrassing for someone.

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

>… word of warning……”

Aren’t you now projecting and adding weight to the intimidation?

? No, I was just pointing out that he’d included enough information to make it easy to find the article.

I hope you scrolled down the page and clicked on every website Mr Car. You know, to balance it back out again ;)

Speedy said:

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

>… word of warning……”

Aren’t you now projecting and adding weight to the intimidation?

? No, I was just pointing out that he’d included enough information to make it easy to find the article.

I hope you scrolled down the page and clicked on every website Mr Car. You know, to balance it back out again ;)

maybe we should click on all other links except the one the links to the age article

maybe someone should write a program that does that

runs away

>? No, I was just pointing out that he’d included enough information to make it easy to find the article.

…think you did a tad more than ‘just’ that, the substance were wizzed away under cover of the merely, or only.

transition said:

>? No, I was just pointing out that he’d included enough information to make it easy to find the article.

…think you did a tad more than ‘just’ that, the substance were wizzed away under cover of the merely, or only.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

>? No, I was just pointing out that he’d included enough information to make it easy to find the article.

…think you did a tad more than ‘just’ that, the substance were wizzed away under cover of the merely, or only.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

So its not just me then

pesce.del.giorno said:

poikilotherm said:

‘coz more people click and link to the newspaper entry than the other entries.

Is that how it works? In that case there’s not much hope for him. Salacious issues are almost more interesting that dry professional credentials.

Mostly. You can pay to have Google promote your site with sponsored links and ads, but mostly search engine page rank is determined democratically.

The internet can be cruel to individuals and small businesses that get into trouble. In a previous job I used to look up a lot of corporate websites each day. Many small businesses have minimal Web presence, maybe just a simple home page with a short blurb about what the business does, and location & contact details.

So if they get into trouble with the law, links to articles about their legal troubles soon dominate all other search results for them. And it’s not unusual that after a year or so of that sort of thing that the search results bring up info about them filing for bankruptcy, etc.

I don’t know how many small transport companies in Australia have gone out of business that way after one or two incidents due to driver fatigue or poorly maintained vehicles; I lost count.

You wont read about it, but aspects of driving, to accommodate high traffic densities, are an aspect of ideological expression and control, that elevated of the competitive going to aggressiveness.

The traffic densities and all else are controlling peoples attention allocations, whereas in a saner world people adjust their environment to suit their personal and individual/ized attention allocations.

Apply that above to what is involved in the dymanic of establishing safe trailing distances between vehicles, and while at it consider what sports involving things on wheels don’t routinely involve breaching and complete failures at establishing safe trailing distances, instead sport as ideological indoctrinator tends the requirement of hypervigilance.

Like I said, I like dogs.

CrazyNeutrino said:

maybe we should click on all other links except the one the links to the age article

That can help if lots of people do it, especially if the clicks are spread out over time. And don’t repeatedly come from the same IP addresses.

CrazyNeutrino said:

maybe someone should write a program that does that

No.

Google takes a very dim view of people who use bots to artificially skew search results. In fact, they’re not very keen on bots of any sort interacting with the interface Google provides for human interaction and they will block you with increasing severity if they think you’re a bot.

They provide an API for programs that want to interact with Google, and expect programmers to use it, although they tolerate a small amount of automatic interaction from kids who are too inexperienced to know better.

transition said:

You wont read about it, but aspects of driving, to accommodate high traffic densities, are an aspect of ideological expression and control, that elevated of the competitive going to aggressiveness.

The traffic densities and all else are controlling peoples attention allocations, whereas in a saner world people adjust their environment to suit their personal and individual/ized attention allocations.

Apply that above to what is involved in the dymanic of establishing safe trailing distances between vehicles, and while at it consider what sports involving things on wheels don’t routinely involve breaching and complete failures at establishing safe trailing distances, instead sport as ideological indoctrinator tends the requirement of hypervigilance.

Like I said, I like dogs.

Dafaq…

PM 2Ring said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

maybe we should click on all other links except the one the links to the age article

That can help if lots of people do it, especially if the clicks are spread out over time. And don’t repeatedly come from the same IP addresses.

So you’re saying that setting up my company’s website as my default homepage has made no difference?

Cymek said:

Bubblecar said:

transition said:

>? No, I was just pointing out that he’d included enough information to make it easy to find the article.

…think you did a tad more than ‘just’ that, the substance were wizzed away under cover of the merely, or only.

I don’t know what you’re talking about.

So its not just me then

Certainly not. Many of us here find that it’s hard work translating ontynese into standard English, and hard to tell how accurate your translation is. I generally find him mostly incomprehensible, except when we’re chatting about music. :)

Speedy said:

PM 2Ring said:

CrazyNeutrino said:

maybe we should click on all other links except the one the links to the age article

That can help if lots of people do it, especially if the clicks are spread out over time. And don’t repeatedly come from the same IP addresses.

So you’re saying that setting up my company’s website as my default homepage has made no difference?

Probably not. Google doesn’t know about it if you merely access a page, no matter how frequently you do it. They only know about what search terms come from a particular IP address, and what search results are clicked on.

But they do use bots to continually crawl over the Web, so that they can maintain their search index. It’s not like there’s a master index of all the pages on the Web, search engine operators have to build there own indices (or pinch them from each other :) ). So Google’s bots crawl over every page that they can access, following all the links they find, or at least, all the links they are permitted to follow. (Not all pages on the Web are publicly accessible, and some of those that are do not permit bots).

So as well as using the number of searches made for a page in determining its rank, Google use the number of links that go to a page, and links from a high ranking page are worth more than links from an obscure page. So get as many people as possible to put links to your company’s website as you can. That includes links from forums, etc, but links in signature blocks aren’t as highly rated as links in the middle of articles.

Google are pretty secretive about the exact details of their page ranking algorithm because they don’t want people doing stuff to skew search results, since they claim that they try to be fair. If someone is a big fan of a particular page that should have some influence on the page ranking, OTOH, they may be doing regular searches of a particular page as an exercise in self-promotion. So Google’s algorithm pays some attention to multiple requests coming from the same IP address, but not too much.

>I don’t know what you’re talking about.

……. why did you search it……

transition said:

>I don’t know what you’re talking about.

……. why did you search it……

To confirm my suspicion that he’d given enough info to easily find the article.

>To confirm my suspicion that he’d given enough info to easily find the article.

That’d be the absolute entirety of ‘suspicion/s’ and confirmations sought….I suppose.

That ‘to’ in there between ‘info’ and ‘easily’, what is that exactly.

transition said:

>To confirm my suspicion that he’d given enough info to easily find the article.

That’d be the absolute entirety of ‘suspicion/s’ and confirmations sought….I suppose.

That ‘to’ in there between ‘info’ and ‘easily’, what is that exactly.

curiosity.

transition said:

>To confirm my suspicion that he’d given enough info to easily find the article.

That’d be the absolute entirety of ‘suspicion/s’ and confirmations sought….I suppose.

That ‘to’ in there between ‘info’ and ‘easily’, what is that exactly.

I still don’t know what you’re getting at. The article linked by Google is a brief court report that doesn’t really tell us much more than pesce did in the OP, except for the person’s name. Since I have no idea who pesce is (and he can rest assured I have no personal interest in his friend’s story), there can surely be no harm in me sounding a note of caution about including too many details when he’s discussing this issue on the internet. This place is harmless enough ‘cos nobody comes here except us, but it’s still the internet :)

PM 2Ring said:

Speedy said:

PM 2Ring said:

That can help if lots of people do it, especially if the clicks are spread out over time. And don’t repeatedly come from the same IP addresses.

So you’re saying that setting up my company’s website as my default homepage has made no difference?

Probably not. Google doesn’t know about it if you merely access a page, no matter how frequently you do it. They only know about what search terms come from a particular IP address, and what search results are clicked on.

But they do use bots to continually crawl over the Web, so that they can maintain their search index. It’s not like there’s a master index of all the pages on the Web, search engine operators have to build there own indices (or pinch them from each other :) ). So Google’s bots crawl over every page that they can access, following all the links they find, or at least, all the links they are permitted to follow. (Not all pages on the Web are publicly accessible, and some of those that are do not permit bots).

So as well as using the number of searches made for a page in determining its rank, Google use the number of links that go to a page, and links from a high ranking page are worth more than links from an obscure page. So get as many people as possible to put links to your company’s website as you can. That includes links from forums, etc, but links in signature blocks aren’t as highly rated as links in the middle of articles.

Google are pretty secretive about the exact details of their page ranking algorithm because they don’t want people doing stuff to skew search results, since they claim that they try to be fair. If someone is a big fan of a particular page that should have some influence on the page ranking, OTOH, they may be doing regular searches of a particular page as an exercise in self-promotion. So Google’s algorithm pays some attention to multiple requests coming from the same IP address, but not too much.

Thanks for explaining this PM.

> if anyone Googles his name, the first thing they learn about him is this road-rage incident 4 years ago.

If anyone Googles my name, they get somebody else.

>……he’s discussing this issue on the internet……”

Fair enough.

Google love machines, love cultural empowerment too.

>So if anyone Googles his name, (as patients and potential employers often do) the first thing they learn about him is this road-rage incident 4 years ago.

Personally I’d ignore the expression ‘road-rage’, it’s a moron term.

From http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/five-google-results-that-can-destroy-your-career/story-fnkgbb3b-1227103044379

The only long-term and effective strategy for combating any unwanted results or preventing them in the future, is to build an active, positive online presence. This involves building a personal website, professional websites, a blog, etc. and then actively maintaining them.

Speedy said:

From http://www.news.com.au/finance/work/five-google-results-that-can-destroy-your-career/story-fnkgbb3b-1227103044379

The only long-term and effective strategy for combating any unwanted results or preventing them in the future, is to build an active, positive online presence. This involves building a personal website, professional websites, a blog, etc. and then actively maintaining them.

I read that and googled myself. A few selfies from my MySpace profile came up and I also died in Canada, which is a bummer.