Google Says You're Dead When You Are Alive

Aug 24, 2012 - 8:35 am 13 by
Filed Under Google

Imagine you are searching your name and up comes the Google knowledge graph with your box at the top right. Then you read what Google has to say about you and it says you have died several years ago. How is that possible, you are not dead.

That is the case for Madhav Prasad Ghimire, a well respected poet in Nepali. He is actually around 94 years of old and just was interviewed by a local newspaper in the area.

But when you Google Madhav Prasad Ghimire, Google will tell you he is dead.

Madhav Prasad Ghimire Google Dead

See, according to Google, he died on September 14, 1959, almost 53 years ago. In fact, it seems Google also has the wrong birth date. He was born on October 22, 1919 not November 12, 1909.

What is going on here? Two possible cases:

(1) Google is referencing a different Madhav Prasad Ghimire but I have no idea which one.

(2) Google has buggy factual data for Madhav Prasad Ghimire and possibly others.

Google responded to the complaint in the Google Web Search Help forums saying:

Thanks for reporting, Manjeet Dhakal and Shannon for the investigative work! I am looking into this for you.

Manjeet, we really appreciate this feedback as it helps make our information as accurate and up to date as possible. If you see anything like this in the future, please don't hesitate to click on the gray 'Feedback' link at the bottom of the box. This allows you to report exactly which piece of information is incorrect so we can take a look!

Update: As pointed out on Google+ by Pe lagic, Wikipedia had his death on an older version of the page.

Forum discussion at Google Web Search Help.

 

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