Google Delists BMW-Germany

Raenex writes "The car maker BMW has had its German website bmw.de delisted from Google. The delisting was punishment for using deceptive means to boost page ranking, which has now been set to zero for BMW. Matt Cutts, a Google employee who works to stop unethical search manipulation, originally reported the delisting in his blog and suggests that camera maker Ricoh is not far behind."

Flashbacks!

[ral8158]

...BMW. Matt Cutts....
Oh my GOD! I'm having flashbacks to geometry! Damn those textbooks creatively using letters to demonstrate rotational, translational, and reflectional symmetry!

(For those deprived of such wonderful experiences, rotating "M" and making a "W" is very common in textbook problems, and, well, I don't even have to start on Matt Cutts, do I?)

Oh...

[JK1150]

Oh, is this why Miserable Failure still goes to President Bush? I see they really have a guard on deceptive search methods there at google, but I wonder why their stock is tanking...

Re:Although this seems "reasonable" in light of th

[flyingsquid]

...it also illustrates the large and growing power of google, a power that may not always be used for optimal "goodness."

In related news, after being de-listed, the headquarters of BMW Germany ceased to exist. People coming to visit the headquarters found only a vast, dark vortex of nothingness, over which were visible huge glowing letters reading "Error 404: Page Not Found". The entire German management of BMW has disappeared as well, along with several nearby dairy farms and a brewery.

At a press conference, a reporter asked whether this sort of behavior fit with the company's "Do no evil" motto, or reflected a growing arrogance and malice on the part of Google. The Google spokesman declined to respond to the question. Instead his eyes briefly glowed red before the reporter spontaneously burst into flames and was consumed, leaving only a small pile of ashes on the floor.

The remaining reporters had no further questions.

Re:Which Domestic Car Maker?

[uradu]

> I'm kind of interested in which "domestic car maker" he's talking about here

Clearly those that don't occur in the wild.

In other news...

[sethstorm]

...BMW drivers all over Palo Alto are somehow locked out of their cars, coincidentally affecting some Google employees. No word yet on if this affects all cars globally, or if this is a localized problem.

Re:Although this seems "reasonable" in light of th

[notnAP]

The entire German management of BMW has disappeared as well, along with several nearby dairy farms and a brewery.

Good Lord, no! Not the brewery!

No. It is because.

[www.sorehands.com]

No, it is because google is a very smart search engine.

Re:Oh that's really good

[typical]

I think that if I were Google, and sufficiently irritated by BMW, I'd just provide a free adword for "BMW" to, say, a BMW competitor saying "Better than BMW".

Re:I do not like this.

[Martindale]

I'm willing to bet it's company policy to disallow Google employees from posting on places like slashdot - and specifically slashdot. =D

Re:Although this seems "reasonable" in light of th

[Eccles]

It appears the BMW site was also referencing 'used cars' as well as new cars, and redirecting to their own site.

Sounds dodgy to me.

Dodgy? Chrysler was doing this too?

Re:Although this seems "reasonable" in light of th

[Frank T. Lofaro Jr.]

No, if it was it might read like this:

"Saugst ein Ei gehen du fettes Bumsen - Du bist 136 Kilogramm Schaumgummiringöl.",

Hang on, I'll Google for it

[Namarrgon]

Oh wait...

New dictionary words???

[TheFlamingoKing]

Would you say they have been "degoogled"?

Or "ungooglable"?

Re:Although this seems "reasonable" in light of th

[Jeremi]

"anonymous killer" as a search term brings up my site first

... which just goes to show how lousy Google's indexing is these days. When I search on "anonymous killer", it's clearly because I want to hire a discreet hit man, not because I'm looking for indy music!

hmm, maybe in the paid results? Nope, there aren't any...

Re:Although this seems "reasonable" in light of th

[geminidomino]

Babelfish, meet drownie. Drownie, this is babelfish. ;)