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If you search for the famous photographer on Google, [terry richardson] you will see the knowledge graph come up and give a nice accurate description of the photographer. But the picture, well, you will see a picture of the President of the United States of America, Barack Obama.
Why is the picture of Barack Obama showing up for a search for Terry Richardson?
Well, Terry Richardson took some well-known photographs of the President. In fact, the picture shown in his knowledge graph is one of the pictures taken by Terry Richardson of President Barack Obama.
This specific one is sourced from leveledmag.com but you can see many of those pictures come up for a search in Google Image search for [terry richardson].
Google is now aware of the issue, as someone reported it in the Google Web Search Help forums. Google's Nealeigh said, "thanks so much for reporting this. I've notified the team and they'll correct the image shortly."
Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.
Comments:
Durant Imboden
09/18/2013 05:48 pm
I just want to see Terry Richardson's birth certificate. How do we know he wasn't born in Kenya?
Anti-SEO
09/18/2013 06:01 pm
Interesting find ! So now Google even can't provide objective information. It's not like pay-day-MC story, where SERP was manipulated. It's not like : "Hey, it's just because of your personal settings/history/whatever" . It's very straightforward query - Person's Name Person's Picture The name of the person is not John Smith. The picture of the person provided is one of the most recognizable. And Google F-A-I-L-E-D !!!!!!! WoW !!!
Rise of the Sapes
09/18/2013 07:56 pm
He was Durant just "bing it"
GovSource
09/19/2013 03:57 am
Bug in knowledge graph!!
Michael Merritt
09/19/2013 12:59 pm
Just speculation, but seems like a failure of the algorithm which finds the photo to use. In most cases, the primary photo from a knowledge graph entry seems to be drawn from either Google+ or Google Image Search, though other photos are used if there are a range of different ones for a person. Failing that, it appears to fall back on something else related to "person." In this case, there is one photo of Richardson on the first image page, but it's poorly labeled in file name, though there are some clues on the photo itself which one would think Google could read. I don't know why they just don't include Wikipedia as a backup source if there isn't a decent photo in Image Search, or nothing if it fails to find something anywhere.
Ford Patterson
09/19/2013 01:06 pm
Obama? This article should have been about Putin...
guy
09/19/2013 03:45 pm
it work of spammers, google is "white and fluffy" and working hard to kill all health niches with their calico "click ads to get health information for seniors engine and pay for nurses"
guy
09/19/2013 03:47 pm
we can only imagine how many billions of bugs in panda & penguines.
guy
09/19/2013 03:51 pm
yes, google not cares about their search results. And no panda for google ;-( G looking to make more $$$$ only, penalize all websites (in commercial topics) and now working on click ads for seniors health website (will destroy all health related websites soon).
Graciousstore
09/20/2013 05:15 am
How come this mix up? The picture of the president coming up when you search for "terry richardson". Whose picture comes up when you search for Barack Obama, Putin's picture? or Hasad's picture?
Frank Gainaford
09/23/2013 03:17 pm
Question is DID GOOGLE FAIL, or was this a carefully manipulated tactic by master terry Richardson?
Frank Gainaford
09/23/2013 03:18 pm
Well this has been done through a few different algorithms, and Terry Richardson may have even engineered this himself. What the Google team can do about this is quite debatable, and may be a very big issue for them to fix. Algorithms are a very complex set of computer instructions which the big G machine uses to evaluate all data for a number of purposes including but not limited to indexing and pre-populating certain databases which the SERP (Search Engine Results Page)other algorithms will use. Authority on any specific subject for any individual author, is also predetermined by an algorithm, and this may be used by an individual author to feature well as an authority on any particular subject, in this case the subject is Barack Obama