Google Thinks Michael Jackson Died in 2007 at the age of 65
Oppppsss… Google made a big bo-bo and displayed wrong information about Michael Jackson’s death:
What happened there? Google’s snippet was pulled from Wikipedia page about Michael Jackson the writer who died in 2007 at the age of 65, instead of the pop music king. The problem has been quickly fixed by the Googlers but MANY people were exposed to the wrong information, including me.
The snippet was pulled algorithmically without human intervention, so this shows just how much of Google is automated.
On the topic of Michael Jackson.
Google wasn’t the only search engine that honored the pop star that day. Yahoo went as far as sending reporters to the hospital for the coverage of the event. They also recorded number of clicks, beating the election day from 15.1 million to 16.4 million. As a content destination with writers and editors, Yahoo took a more editorial event on the issue. They’ve included stories from major news sources on the sidebars. Yahoo also called staff who were off to help with the overload of traffic.
Bing’s performance was poor, as it showed information for Michael Jackson on the bottom of the page instead of featuring it in the most prominent spot on top of the page.
Personally I think Yahoo did the best job because they are a search engine / content destination. Google is number 2, because the algorithmic error, while Bing is still number 3.
Battle goes on!
