I'm outraged! Hot on the heels of my post to this journal last week, to the effect that:
... a recent referrer came from the google.com search results page for "mothkind". I take some pride in the fact that when you search for mothkind, the highest pageranked site on the internet is mine.
[Via James.ToString()]
Now, it has come to my attention today that if you click that link right there, or search for 'mothkind' on Google yourself, you'll find that Google have revoked my status as a global authority on mothkind. This sort of censorship is precisely the abuse of power which we have always feared Google might someday commit.
In fact, a search for 'mothkind' on Google today leads to the clearly erroneous statement that "No standard web pages containing all your search terms were found.". Obviously Google has recategorised my page (and presumably Albert the Moth, and the one about the 'GIANT MOTH ATTACK!!!') as 'substandard' pages. The evidence that the word 'mothkind' is indeed present on the Internet - with an ever increasing frequency - is right here in front of your eyes,
All is not lost. MSN does list this site (and this site alone) as a destination for those looking for information about mothkind. Jeeves lists several pages, including the charming Fable of the Moths, which begins with the wonderfully resonant sentence: "Once there was a young moth who did not believe that the proper end for all mothkind was a zish and a frizzle."
Let us hope that Google does not put an end to all mothkind with a zish and a frizzle. Yet, in this day and age, it is increasingly the case that if Google declares that something does not appear on any 'standard web page', then clearly it doesn't exist. Imagine the disappointment of the person who first inspired me to write that post - the one who originally set out on a search for 'mothkind' on the Web, if they'd been told "No standard web pages containing all your search terms were found". Their search would have ended there. They would never have clicked through to my site; I'd never have noticed them in my referrer logs; I'd never have written that article; and I'd never have discovered the Fable of the Moths.
A poorer world indeed, then, and one we must hope that we are not forced to live in by Google's continued denial that 'mothkind' appears on any 'standard' page.