If that still doesn’t work, make your own website(s) and have them show up in the top spots on Google. Then you’ll control what does/not appear when people look you up.

If that’s not the case, I’d speak to your SEO or whoever handles that and ask for an explanation.

You shouldn’t have to beg Google, but you should also not build your business to be dependent on it either.

And neither should you (you in general, not you personally) be surprised by something like this unless a significant algorithmic change has taken place. Outside of algo changes, the more common reason is greyhat/blackhat SEO, which takes a calculated risk. If you can’t take the risk, don’t do it…

James, that’s a good argument about the difference in what’s being censored. But I don’t find it persuasive. It’s like that commentary on the Nazis’ practices, by Pastor Martin Niemöller:

“When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.”

I’m not saying that they’re Nazis, to be clear. I am saying that such distinctions lend themselves to sliding down a slippery slope. What about content that is politically damaging to a party but then is denied by the other side? Is Google going to be the arbiter of truth there too?

As to the WMD issue, if you consider the liberal tendencies in the tech industry generally, and California (Google HQ) specifically, there’s no reason that would be gone.

I have no problems with censorship of fabricated linkbait. But in reality there’s no way to automate that form of censorship. So it’s not likely to become a widespread issue. Political censorship is another story. But if it was likely to become a reality in the West, wouldn’t the whole WMD disaster be missing from the SERP’s already?

What really scares me is the fact that people read Matt’s blog and treat his posts as if they were the rulings of the Supreme Court, to say the least. If Matt said that what Lyndon did is wrong, then we can burn him on a stake. Up until Matt said something, there was a discussion. After that point, all discussion is finished, the prophet has spoken. Hell there was a much weaker response to the Tienanmen square censorship than to Lyndon’s bait and that is exactly what scares me – not Google, they are a profit driven company – the fact that people will get genuinely upset if you try to game Google, as if you are upseting some kind of world order…