Simon Mansfield reports that his publication SpaceWar.com, one of his SpaceDaily family of web sites is no longer having its pages served by Google. Strangely, if you search for "Space War" you find lots of sites linking to http://www.spacewar.com, but if you search for sites linking to www.spacewar.com, the search comes up empty. To enforce Google's "Don't be evil" policy, I don't think Google's robots are smart enough to parse the following:

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT="war, death, destruction, ruin, hate, bad bad bad">

Space.TV corp, SpaceWar.com's parent isn't taking this lying down. "We consider the ban a violation of the recently enacted US-Australia Free Trade Agreement." We wish them a fruitful trade war.

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2006-02-25 09:55 Update: It's back up and running. See Simon's comment.

Classic irony. Space Daily's own search engine is awful, making it nearly impossible to find things on their website. For instance, try doing a search for columnist Jeff Bell's op-ed pieces. Just search under "Jeff Bell." So before they complain, maybe they should clean up their own house.

This is how our rights are going to be constrained and lost: Not by government action, but by cooperative agencies and individuals that shut down websites, warn blog visitors of "offensive content", or fire controversial individuals who dare to think differently and speak out. I'm more concerned about Google and Yahoo and Microsoft than I ever was about John Ashcroft.

I'm still more concerned about Ashcroft. You can always use another search engine. You can't use a different national law enforcement agency unless you move to a another country.

At first I thought this might be some sort of government information program and wrote a long simmering blog entry, but after talking this over with a friend I'm now of the opinion that this is most likely some sort of fault with Google's robots or the SpaceWar robots.txt file.

Failing that, the second most likely reason is a complaint to Google from some company.

Let's hope it gets relisted soon. Their lead article today announces Gen. Lord's retirement as of 1 Apr. I think the next choice for his position should be taken very carefully: Milspace got just 1 paragraph in QDR and the AF space program is in need of a miracle to get well.

Sounds like a lot of complaining about what is most likely a technical glitch.

Go Google "Air Force" and the first hit is the USAF. It doesn't sound like Google is discriminating against websites featuring this subject.

Perhaps I'm doing it wrong, or perhaps it's already been fixed, ubt I can't find any issues googling "space war" or "www.spacewar.com", nor any issues when I click on the "sites that link to this" link.

Has this minor technical glitch been fixed then?

Can anybody access Mansfield's link complaining about his site being "banned"? I get a "cannot find server" response.

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the coverage.

We are now back to status quo with Google and looking forward to a stellar 28 days of Ad Sense revenue this glorious February from Google Inc.

This was a very quick victory in getting what we wanted back now and not tomorrow. Someone - and in fact quite a few someones - reached out and said what.....

Truly, a day I'll cherish for the rest of my life.

Readers of Trans Terrestrial may find SpaceWar.com quite useful. We have daily coverage on many issues relating to modern warfare and its supporting doctrines. Our news coverage is broadly sourced and presented to readers to take and leave as they see fit.

Again thanks for reporting this.

regards,
Simon Mansfield
President
Space.TV Corp

I'm beginning to see parallels between the detractors of google and the former detractors of micro$oft. The solution is to do a better job of competing. There are other engines, why can't any get there marketing act together?

"I'm still more concerned about Ashcroft. You can always use another search engine. You can't use a different national law enforcement agency unless you move to a another country."

the other day i read an article, "TIA [total information awareness] lives on" at http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2006/0223nj1.htm

not all that related to the discussion though i guess