The Volokh Conspiracy - Google and Abu Ghraib / Lynndie England images:

A Metafilter post complains that a Google Images search for "Lynndie England" comes up with nothing (even with SafeSearch off), and a search for "Abu Ghraib" comes up with little; on the other hand, Yahoo images search for "Lynndie England" and "Abu Ghraib" (thanks to reader Mark Cridland for the pointer). I checked it out, and the allegation seems accurate.

Any thoughts on why the Google search engine ("The most comprehensive image search on the web," according to the Google images search page) is failing to locate things that Yahoo is locating? Is it a technological failure on Google's part, or a deliberate decision to silently block those pages? Either answer might lead Google users to be skeptical of the results that it yields in other cases, too. Or am I mistaken on the facts?

UPDATE: Several readers pointed me to a discussion yesterday of this on Slashdot. (I composed my post Saturday, if I recall correctly, but saved it for today; that'll teach me to delay.) Here's an e-mail from one reader, Charles Chapman (David Price sent me similar information, and some other people sent me shorter versions):

Slashdot has covered this issue. See: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/07/1442217&tid=153 http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/07/2043207&tid=217&tid=153&tid=17 Slashdot also has an official response from google: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=10747654&sid=128815&tid=153 The reason is that the Google image index hasn't been updated recently. A Slashdot reader has verified this. Again see: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/07/2043207&tid=217&tid=153&tid=17

I haven't checked this yet, but it may well be so, even though it puzzles me that failure to recently update the index would cause hundreds of photos, some of them months old, to be invisible. In any event, according to reader accounts this seems to be indeed a technological glitch rather than deliberate exclusion — though a technological glitch that users should keep in mind, since who knows whether a similar glitch might lead their next query to likewise miss hundreds of items on many sites.

FURTHER UPDATE: A quick skim of the threads suggests that the "glitch" might be that google isn't fully updating its index for many months, likely for over half a year. That seems like a mighty odd design decision, for a company that's indexing a fast-moving medium such as the Internet. Or am I missing something?

	[Eugene Volokh, November 8, 2004 at 12:05pm] Trackbacks Google and Abu Ghraib / Lynndie England images: A Metafilter post complains that a Google Images search for "Lynndie England" comes up with nothing (even with SafeSearch off), and a search for "Abu Ghraib" comes up with little; on the other hand, Yahoo images search for "Lynndie England" and "Abu Ghraib" (thanks to reader Mark Cridland for the pointer). I checked it out, and the allegation seems accurate. Any thoughts on why the Google search engine ("The most comprehensive image search on the web," according to the Google images search page) is failing to locate things that Yahoo is locating? Is it a technological failure on Google's part, or a deliberate decision to silently block those pages? Either answer might lead Google users to be skeptical of the results that it yields in other cases, too. Or am I mistaken on the facts? UPDATE: Several readers pointed me to a discussion yesterday of this on Slashdot. (I composed my post Saturday, if I recall correctly, but saved it for today; that'll teach me to delay.) Here's an e-mail from one reader, Charles Chapman (David Price sent me similar information, and some other people sent me shorter versions): Slashdot has covered this issue. See: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/07/1442217&tid=153 http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/07/2043207&tid=217&tid=153&tid=17 Slashdot also has an official response from google: http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?cid=10747654&sid=128815&tid=153 The reason is that the Google image index hasn't been updated recently. A Slashdot reader has verified this. Again see: http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/11/07/2043207&tid=217&tid=153&tid=17 I haven't checked this yet, but it may well be so, even though it puzzles me that failure to recently update the index would cause hundreds of photos, some of them months old, to be invisible. In any event, according to reader accounts this seems to be indeed a technological glitch rather than deliberate exclusion — though a technological glitch that users should keep in mind, since who knows whether a similar glitch might lead their next query to likewise miss hundreds of items on many sites. FURTHER UPDATE: A quick skim of the threads suggests that the "glitch" might be that google isn't fully updating its index for many months, likely for over half a year. That seems like a mighty odd design decision, for a company that's indexing a fast-moving medium such as the Internet. Or am I missing something?