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Google and search engines have an obligation to remove child abuse and child pornography from their search results. But what happens when your site is labeled as having such content, when it does not actually have the content?
It seems to be the case of a site named eqalis.com. The site is for a company that provides IT solutions for other companies. It doesn't have child pornography or actually any content related to children at all. In fact, the Internet Watch Foundation said there has never been reports about the site, nor after manual review by them, does it have content about children.
So why is it blocked in Google for "suspected child abuse content"? Maybe there is a hack we cannot see? Maybe a rogue competitor reported it? Maybe it was just a mistake or human error at Google.
A Google Webmaster Help thread has several webmasters trying to help. As the site owner said, this is "totally absurd as we are dealing with IT Log Management Solutions." In fact, he is ready to take "legal" action he said because this is "damaging effect" on his business.
Forum discussion at Google Webmaster Help.
Update: John Mueller from Google said they have addressed the issue. He wrote in the thread:
Thanks for letting us know (and thanks for bubbling it up to us, Ben!). We've fixed it -- it looks like there was a mistake in handling a feed of data, we apologize for the mistake.
Comments:
Andre Buxey
04/04/2014 12:28 pm
Legal action against Google? yeah , he is going to have a bad time....
Jawad Latif
04/04/2014 01:03 pm
Astonished to see that its Page Rank still prevails.
Thomas
04/04/2014 01:26 pm
how horrible for the business owner. I have a site that is labeled as having porn :/ I have owned the domain for over 5 years... at one point it did have topless celebrity photos on it according to wayback machine, but even that was way before I bought the domain. to this day it is still flagged, sucks, such a waste.
ethalon
04/04/2014 01:33 pm
You are seeing the page rank as reported by the toolbar... ...why are you astonished to see it hasn't been updated to reflect a recent change to a site?
Alexander Hemedinger
04/04/2014 01:46 pm
South Park reference. You sir are my new friend. =)
EZ93
04/04/2014 02:16 pm
All day long it was a competitor, it never ceases to amaze me the depths our competitors have gone go to, no specifics but one of our competitors has tried everything in the book. As far as legal action against Google goes...er wake up! if its affecting his business that badly already, after the year it will take to get it to court, and the costs, is it really worth it. Maybe a begging letter that they have got it wrong would bare more fruit than a fight?
Curtis
04/04/2014 03:32 pm
Looks like Google made a mistake?: Thanks for letting us know (and thanks for bubbling it up to us, Ben!). We've fixed it -- it looks like there was a mistake in handling a feed of data, we apologize for the mistake.
James
04/04/2014 03:34 pm
"bubbling it up" ... that's a new one to add to my "corporate speak" bingo card. What is wrong with "bringing it to my attention" or "letting us know"?
Durant Imboden
04/04/2014 04:07 pm
I'm pretty sure that "bubble it up" is techspeak or programmerspeak, not corporatespeak. (To John Mueller's credit, he didn't say it in Schwyzerdeutsch.)
Jawad Latif
04/07/2014 11:32 am
Google penalized my blog & I witnessed my PR dropped to zero immediately. I got my PR back when Google lifted the penalty. So I assume toolbar reports change in PR after a site got hit by Google.