Google, am I stupid – or what is going on?

If you search google for ” Apple Focus Customer” you get on the first page my post entry about “Learn About Customer Focus From Big Business.”

Nowhere on my blog page, including the comments, can I find:

“I can not say enough good things about Apple customer support.”

How did that get there? I guess after my two posts recently about the bad customer care situation with Apple – this can only be a joke?

Can anyone enlighten me, did I get something wrong, am I going paranoid or is this a flagrant misrepresentation of my original posting? ST.

12 Responses to “ Google, am I stupid – or what is going on? ”

1. Shama Hyder
   
   Said on November 11th, 2007 at 9:38 pm

   Stefan-this is truly nuts! I can’t believe such a thing could happen….

2. graywolf
   
   Said on November 12th, 2007 at 2:36 am

   can you go back and check through your old trackbacks and see if the comment was there at some point? If you are using any sort of spam moderation or trackback moderation check there as well.

3. Stefan Töpfer
   
   Said on November 12th, 2007 at 8:56 am

   Graywolf,

   Thank you for your comment, I’ll try to find out, but wonder why Google would diplay something I have clearly not allowed on my blog.

   I moderate all my comments personally?!

   Stefan

4. graywolf
   
   Said on November 12th, 2007 at 3:34 pm

   depends on the way the software is built some programs run based on page views, so if the comment was made, the bot visited, but the moderation hadn’t yet run the google spider would see it and index it. It doesn’t happen often but I have seen it before.

5. Stefan Töpfer
   
   Said on November 12th, 2007 at 3:43 pm

   I moderate first then publish – so this should not happen? I’m still not sure what is going on here?

6. What Is Google Up to Now? | My Thoughts, Ideas, and Ramblings
   
   Said on November 14th, 2007 at 5:11 pm

   [...] came across this article over at The Small Business Blog.  It is very, very interesting.  I am going to use the screenshot he took of a google search that [...]

7. Ross
   
   Said on November 14th, 2007 at 9:21 pm

   To echo graywolf’s comment –

   Yes, it is possible that a comment that you had yet to approve, was indexed by Google. A ‘normal’ web surfer would not have viewed the comment awaiting moderation – hence your moderation software IS working the way it’s supposed to. But, the Google Bot is not a normal web surfer. It finds things that a regular browser won’t. So, if the phrase “I can not say enough good things about Apple customer support” was ever even *awaiting* moderation, Google might have found it.

   That is in fact the more likely scenario, as much as everyone wants to watch Google make a massive f*&*-up, they simply aren’t dumb enough to start doing what has happened here (text that was never actually on the page is displayed in search results) on purpose.

8. Amy
   
   Said on November 14th, 2007 at 10:55 pm

   I came over from Lisa’s (My Thoughts) blog.

   I found that phrase on comment #6 on your previous post.

   # T. Norfolk

   Said on November 7th, 2007 at 8:37 pm

   Monday Morning Blues.
   I can not say enough good things about Apple customer support. Every time I go to their store (10 minutes drive from where I live) they treat me like I am special. I can see that they do that to everybody, but I still feel special. Compare that to BestBuy!!!
   I am not buying a PC again!
   

9. Lisa
   
   Said on November 15th, 2007 at 12:29 am

   Ok. After I blogged about this, one of my readers found the comment on your blog. Look at this post:

   http://www.sme-blog.com/office-it/apple-a-customer-support-nightmare

   It is comment #6.

10. Stefan Töpfer
    
    Said on November 15th, 2007 at 1:19 am

    Interesting, not even the same post. Google changed what my post was all about.
    Thank you guys for finding this.

    Stefan

11. Jen Carpenter
    
    Said on April 6th, 2009 at 6:30 pm

    It’s pretty disconcerting that Google would include a ranking for a post, but base that ranking on a comment found nowhere within that post.

12. Leaflet Distribution
    
    Said on April 9th, 2009 at 2:17 pm

    Hi Stefan,
    I am sorry to read about the problem/mix up, when Google indexs a page I would guess that it takes all the content on that page as one article or at least a page talking about the same topic.

    Has the offending text, been taken from your recent comments feed ?

    If that text was in the first part of their comment then that would have been shown on the feed and hence on the page …
    Not sure if that makes sense !! but it does to me !!

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