Seeking help! No matter how many keywords/names u search related to this story the article doesn't appear on Google
This was a front page A1 story I wrote for WaPo on how smear campaigns and abuse women journalists endure are a press freedom issue. Can someone explain why the article does not appear on Google? https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2023/02/14/women-journalists-global-violence/
One of the journalists featured in this story raised it to me, she is wondering if bad actors have been able to get the story hidden from Google. These women journalists were so brave to detail their abuse and harassment, and now the story is essentially wiped from the web. What is going on!?
@taylorlorenz Perhaps Alphabet has patriarchal elements that are hidden from the public gaze...
@taylorlorenz It’s not findable using @kagihq. The closest it gets is this tweet about the article by the WP: https://x.com/washingtonpost/status/1625550937937874945
@taylorlorenz Is it paywalled? I can't get more than the first couple of paragraphs.
@taylorlorenz Simply, Google is a far right criminal organization.
@taylorlorenz So I happen to use Firefox on Ubuntu, but google search, and it shows up for me right now.
@taylorlorenz it's because there's a "noindex" tag in the head. This is telling search engines not to display the article in search results
@taylorlorenz Depends on what keywords you use. "women journalists harassed" gets a lot of hits. If I toss "Washington post" in front, I get this article on top of a bunch of other articles about harassment of women journalists.
b/c musk et al
@taylorlorenz
Here we have soe historic alleged #censorship
by #google.
@taylorlorenz It's marked as "noindex".
You can look up the source code.
<meta name="robots" content="noindex"/><meta name="robots" content="noarchive, max-image-preview:large"/>
@taylorlorenz
Forgive my laziness in not checking myself, but have they told google not to index the article via a robot.txt file?
@taylorlorenz the page is set to noindex. This means that WaPo asks google not to put this article into search results. This is either a manual error or on purpose, but definitely something from WaPo. Happy to provide more info if you dm me.
@taylorlorenz Come up when I google it...
@taylorlorenz
I suspect the problem is that #WaPo is owned by #billionaire #Bezos. He prevented the paper from endorsing #KamalaHarris' campaign in order to curry favor from #convictedfelon #DonaldTrump. WaPo lost credibility because of that, to the detriment of many fine journalists working there.
Maybe the article needs to be published by some other outlet that is more trustworthy.
Update: The simple reason is that WaPo puts "noindex" tags on their pages!
@taylorlorenz I get this as a Google result when I put key phrases in quotation marks:
@taylorlorenz Hm. First link on Duck Duck Go for the headline "These women journalists were doing their jogs. That made them targets." is to a site called "TV News Check". Which contains a short blurb and a direct link to the article, published February 2023.
A search for "Women journalists washington post" brings up nothing for at least 6 "More Results" screens down.
@taylorlorenz what would effectively do that is a no-index tag in the header. I can’t check that from my phone. It could have only been added by the WaPo.
@taylorlorenz It works from here. How are you not trying to boost the article? I don't mind, but the experience tastes awkward.
