Google and the JFK Assassination

[John Simkin]

If you do a search for the “Assassination of John F. Kennedy” at Google,  websites, forums and Facebook groups that suggest that Lee Harvey Oswald was not a lone gunman do not appear until the fifth page of results where the “Mary Ferrell Foundation” is listed. It has not always been the case. A few years ago, my Assassination of John F. Kennedy index page was at number one at Google. Now you don’t get to it via Google unless you type “Assassination of John F. Kennedy Spartacus Educational”. In other words, you need to know of its existence before you can go to the site via Google.

One reason why I was taken out of the Google Database was the article that I wrote: “Google, Bing and Operation Mockingbird: The CIA and Search-Engine Results” on 10th June, 2014.

https://spartacus-educational.com/spartacus-blogURL31.html

However, the main reason is the way Google now ranks websites. Google’s great innovation when it began in 1998 was to rank websites by the number of links it had (they called it peer group approval) rather than the number of times the keyword or phrase appeared on the page. This enabled anti-establishment websites to get to the top of Google searches.

A few years ago, Google changed its system. It was now “Domain Authority” that was the major factor in searches. The Domain Authority score ranges from one to 100, with higher scores corresponding to a greater ability to rank. Google now has the power to give an anti-establishment website a low Domain Authority number. If you go back to your Google search for “Assassination of John F. Kennedy” you will see how this works.

The first page is dominated by large organisations such as Wikipedia, Encyclopaedia Britannica, JFK Library, CNN, National Archives, etc. Then comes any articles that have appeared in the national press on the assassination. It is not until you reach the 5^th page before you get to any website that is really questioning the official account of the assassination.

Other search engines are better. Bing also favours the establishment websites but does not take out completely those websites that provide an alternative view. Therefore my JFK assassination page appears at the top of its second page.

The best search-engine to use is Dogpile, where my site comes in 6^th place. Dogpile is a metasearch engine for information on the World Wide Web that fetches results from Google, Yahoo!, Yandex, Bing, Yahoo! and results from other popular search engines. This illustrates the hostility that Google shows to those websites willing to question the official story.

Despite Google’s campaign against my JFK assassination website I still have 330 Facebook “Likes. I am therefore willing to use my position to help other good websites, blogs, forums and Facebook groups who are willing to take a serious approach to the assassination. Please send me details if you want me to add your site to my index page.

https://spartacus-educational.com/JFKindex.htm

[Joe Bauer]

Since almost every poll taken in the last 55 years shows a noticeable to solid to huge majority of Americans not believing the official WC government finding of Oswald as a guilty party "Lone Gunman" in the assassination of JFK, you would think that Google would consider this reality in determining domain authority priority and placing websites that expand upon and legitimize the majority belief (with massively well documented research) way behind those that only reflect the clear minority view of the WC finding or semi-support it with a so-called (but conspiracy theory diminishing)  "neutral"  take?

By doing so, they clearly promote this 55 year long minority view.

Edited May 27, 2019 by Joe Bauer

[Stephanie Goldberg]

Just for reference, the Mary Ferrell foundation shows up on page three for me when I do the same search.

[Ron Bulman]

Maybe not a good example.  But if someone young and curious about the 60's googles Neil Young's Crosby Stills Nash and Young song Four Dead in Ohio they get this and probably click on the first image.  

https://www.bing.com/search?q=four+dead+in+ohio&form=PRUSEN&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&refig=480f8566483440f49b0f49616632a0d1&sp=1&ghc=1&qs=AS&pq=four+dead&sc=8-9&cvid=480f8566483440f49b0f49616632a0d1

Great song, four (?) relevant images. with 281 K views.  

If you actually click on the "videos of four dead in Ohio", then scroll down to the second line of them you might stumble across this much more informative video, actually showing the victims and much more.  With 1.6 M views.  It shows what Neil Young wrote about the day after it happened much more vividly.  But you have to look for it.

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=four+dead+in+ohio&qpvt=four+dead+in+ohio&view=detail&mid=D494CD0FE83D62C1127CD494CD0FE83D62C1127C&&FORM=VRDGAR

Edited May 28, 2019 by Ron Bulman

[Michael Cross]

Google is getting worse across the board frankly.  

[Andrew Prutsok]

My old company was heavily involved in this crap. Google uses several factors to determine search rankings.  There is both internal and external authority. In addition to sites that link to you and to whom you link, it gets as granular as your site having an easily recognizable name, address and phone number. Not only that, this needs to be in text format and not part of an image. Google's crawlers do not read words imbedded in images. Having video on your site is helpful. Google ranks video higher than text. Does your organization or you personally have a wikipedia page? It matters on search rankings. Google likes Wikipedia.

Here's a list of some of the things that Google looks at in rankings:

 

[Joseph McBride]

Facebook for the first time in my experience blacked out a JFK autopsy

photo I posted today. It says against the black covering background, "This photo may show violent or graphic content."

And it goes on, "This photo was automatically covered so people can decide

if they want to see it." You can click on a link reading "Uncover photo" to open

it. This was the "stare of death" photo I posted among others on JFK's 102th birthday,

including a portrait I took of him while working as a volunteer in his 1960 Wisconsin presidential primary campaign,

a photo I took of the room where he was born, a baby photo, photos of him as a boy, etc.

Edited May 30, 2019 by Joseph McBride

[Ron Bulman]

"They", have reason to suppress that photo these day's.  It attracts attention to his ongoing popularity and the fact 60-70% of us still don't believe the official story and cover up.  Further, it represents body alteration and in turn the cover up itself.  From memory: the Priest who gave JFK his last rights in Dallas when questioned later said his eyes were closed when he last saw him.  One of the people at Bethesda who observed the unwrapping of his head stated that one eye was open just a small slit.  Yet, if I recall right, there was comment by/of the mortician stitching his eyes shut.  Why, how after rigor mortis had set in would they be re opened?  Just for this picture?  For the shock value, to disgust people and discourage people from "looking further" into his death?  To let future presidents know that this is what happens when one confronts the power elite?  I realize it's moribund and saddening.  But future generations need to look at it.

It doesn't pop up immediately when you google it either.https://www.bing.com/search?q=jfk+death+stare+photo&form=PRUSEN&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&refig=d6a86718596c4904b648b2d1a289cbbe&sp=6&qs=AS&pq=jfk+death+s&sk=AS5&sc=8-11&cvid=d6a86718596c4904b648b2d1a289cbbe

Only if you add the word autopsy to the search, click on the second choice and scroll down to page ten of it do you find it.  Note the picture on page four where his eyes seem only partially open.  And of course their disclaimer on page one about disturbing images and unverified sources.

http://www.campbellmgold.com/archive_general/jfk_autopsy_photo.pdf 

[Ray Mitcham]

Interesting video, Ron.

 

 

[John Butler]

Ray,

Don't pretend you don't know the answer.  You do it all the time.

[James DiEugenio]

Jonathan Marshall has been complaining about this for awhile.  Elizabeth Warren picked it up.

The three giants of the web--Amazon, Google, and Facebook--have become the Rockefeller, Morgan, Carnegie of the modern age.  The contemporary Robber Barons.

And the thing is Gates was influential in this.  Like a lot of other things--e.g. cell phones, open source online encyclopdia-- Gates missed the frontier of the web.  So when Netscape left him in the dust, he did that little trick about forcing buyers to accept his browser, which caused the anti trust case against him.  And that helped open the door for Google.

But as noted above, Google likes Wikipedia.  And we know how bad Wikipedia is on the JFK case.  I mean they might as well be the NY Times.

The problem is, how do you begin breaking up these three?  Marshall says that a  serious problem they pose is that advertisers virtually do not go anywhere else.  Which, of course, limits the way other sites can survive.  I think he once quoted a figure of them getting around ninety per cent of all ad revenue on the web.  Which means TPM has to sell subscriptions in order to survive; and as Bob Parry once told me before he passed on, Consortium News had no choice but to do fund drives.

 Its like there is no Justice Department division that does the whole anti trust, restraint of trade policing anymore.  And that is bad for the consumer.

 

 

[Ray Mitcham]

5 hours ago, John Butler said:

Ray,

Don't pretend you don't know the answer.  You do it all the time.

Please, John, inform me of what I know. Should be interesting.

[James DiEugenio]

To get back to Google.  This is interesting.

 

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/google-department-of-justice-antitrust-probe_n_5cf28a13e4b0a1997b6b1862