<story><title>Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/why-did-protonmail-vanish-from-google-search-results-for-months/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fastball</author><text>So what exactly is your solution? What law do you put in place, precisely? Google has to provide consumers with whatever information they want, whenever they want it, free of charge? Because that seems to be what you&amp;#x27;re gunning for.</text></item><item><author>coldtea</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not like you have a right to appear in Google&amp;#x27;s search results...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It should be, though.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not 1776. A website like Google is more than a company, it&amp;#x27;s a public service with immense power of manipulation and influence over countless industries.&lt;p&gt;The law shouldn&amp;#x27;t be written like we live in the stone age.</text></item><item><author>fastball</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not like you have a right to appear in Google&amp;#x27;s search results...&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll rag on Google&amp;#x27;s poor support as much as the next guy, but only when it&amp;#x27;s warranted. ProtonMail and anyone else that gets delisted &amp;#x2F; what-have-you is not Google&amp;#x27;s client and shouldn&amp;#x27;t expect first-class support for things like this.</text></item><item><author>joosters</author><text>So Google&amp;#x27;s recommended way of reporting a problem is to post on a forum that Google themselves don&amp;#x27;t officially read (or promise any kind of response)? Do you understand why some people might not think that&amp;#x27;s a satisfactory solution?</text></item><item><author>f_allwein</author><text>[2016].&lt;p&gt;Having worked at Google’s Search Quality Evaluation team, I can confirm that Google would only manually remove sites from its search results if they violate its webmaster guidelines: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;support.google.com&amp;#x2F;webmasters&amp;#x2F;answer&amp;#x2F;35769?hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;support.google.com&amp;#x2F;webmasters&amp;#x2F;answer&amp;#x2F;35769?hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there can be other issues preventing a site from showing up in the search results (e.g. site migration issues, accidentally locking out Googlebot in robots.txt, ...). In such cases, the best way to raise the issue would be to report it on the webmaster forum, which is frequented both by smart and helpful users and by Googlers working on search quality: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;productforums.google.com&amp;#x2F;forum&amp;#x2F;#!forum&amp;#x2F;webmasters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;productforums.google.com&amp;#x2F;forum&amp;#x2F;#!forum&amp;#x2F;webmasters&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>cjcole</author><text>When they, by virtue of their overwhelming market share, nuke a competitor&amp;#x27;s product off the face of the internet, whether algorithmically or intentionally, it feels reasonable to me to compel them to provide more detail than &amp;quot;we fixed the glitch&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;Google does not have the right to avoid being regulated in the public interest.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why Did ProtonMail Vanish from Google Search Results? (2016)</title><url>https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/why-did-protonmail-vanish-from-google-search-results-for-months/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>fastball</author><text>So what exactly is your solution? What law do you put in place, precisely? Google has to provide consumers with whatever information they want, whenever they want it, free of charge? Because that seems to be what you&amp;#x27;re gunning for.</text></item><item><author>coldtea</author><text>&amp;gt;&lt;i&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not like you have a right to appear in Google&amp;#x27;s search results...&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;It should be, though.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s not 1776. A website like Google is more than a company, it&amp;#x27;s a public service with immense power of manipulation and influence over countless industries.&lt;p&gt;The law shouldn&amp;#x27;t be written like we live in the stone age.</text></item><item><author>fastball</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not like you have a right to appear in Google&amp;#x27;s search results...&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;ll rag on Google&amp;#x27;s poor support as much as the next guy, but only when it&amp;#x27;s warranted. ProtonMail and anyone else that gets delisted &amp;#x2F; what-have-you is not Google&amp;#x27;s client and shouldn&amp;#x27;t expect first-class support for things like this.</text></item><item><author>joosters</author><text>So Google&amp;#x27;s recommended way of reporting a problem is to post on a forum that Google themselves don&amp;#x27;t officially read (or promise any kind of response)? Do you understand why some people might not think that&amp;#x27;s a satisfactory solution?</text></item><item><author>f_allwein</author><text>[2016].&lt;p&gt;Having worked at Google’s Search Quality Evaluation team, I can confirm that Google would only manually remove sites from its search results if they violate its webmaster guidelines: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;support.google.com&amp;#x2F;webmasters&amp;#x2F;answer&amp;#x2F;35769?hl=en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;support.google.com&amp;#x2F;webmasters&amp;#x2F;answer&amp;#x2F;35769?hl=en&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, there can be other issues preventing a site from showing up in the search results (e.g. site migration issues, accidentally locking out Googlebot in robots.txt, ...). In such cases, the best way to raise the issue would be to report it on the webmaster forum, which is frequented both by smart and helpful users and by Googlers working on search quality: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;productforums.google.com&amp;#x2F;forum&amp;#x2F;#!forum&amp;#x2F;webmasters&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;productforums.google.com&amp;#x2F;forum&amp;#x2F;#!forum&amp;#x2F;webmasters&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mattmanser</author><text>Identifying a problem caused by a monopoly is not the same as having to provide a solution for it. Some sort of regulation. No-one said they had to do it free.</text></comment>