Piaras Kelly PR - Public Relations in Ireland

Nick Carr points out that due to some SEO on the New York Times websites, old articles are starting to appear higher in Google with unintended consequences. Carr pulls out a quote by NYT editor, Clark Hoyt, “Long-buried information about people that is wrong, outdated or incomplete is getting unwelcome new life. People are coming forward at the rate of roughly one a day to complain that they are being embarrassed, are worried about losing or not getting jobs, or may be losing customers because of the sudden prominence of old news articles that contain errors or were never followed up.“

This is nothing new. The Internet is the medium people turn to for breaking news. Unfortunately more people are ending up on the wrong news stories after Google searches. I pointed this out before in relation to a fire in Cork when Damien Mulley, a popular Irish blogger, noticed that a similar post on his website was getting traffic as a result of the related story.

With sources like the NYT ranking higher in Google now, it throws even more fuel on the fire as people automatically take its content for granted given that it’s an authoritative news source. Clark Hoyt references a specific example of an old NYT article which has caused unforeseen problems for Allen Kraus, a New York Official whose resignation from his post was incorrectly linked to fraud in the New York Times. Carr notes that “The Times published stories about the affair, including one with the headline ‘A Welfare Official Denies He Resigned Because of Inquiry’ - and that headline now appears at the top of the results you get if you google Kraus’s name. Kraus is, with good reason, unhappy that his good name is, sixteen years after the fact, again being tarnished.“

This isn’t the first time this has happened and it certainly won’t be the last. The Internet is a cultural phenomenon but we’re going through some growing pains at the moment. As Carr notes in his headline, perhaps it’s time for the Net to forget.

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