I've been transcribing an interview about the Holocaust and experiences of people that went through it and trying to search for the spelling of some names, I've written only "Jew" in the search box. On the right side, there was a Google ad saying: Sponsored Links Offensive Search Results We're disturbed about these results as well. Please read our note here. www.google.com/explanation The "funny" thing was that the results page didn't seem to contain any page that would seem rasist or offend Jewish people. I find it very nice of Google to at least try to provide a reason why some results may be unexpected, unlike other search engines. People can get upset easily.
I tried it and did see the message - perhaps it's geo-targeted? - it comes up in Europe? Though I couldn't see anything that looked anti-semitic in the results either. There have been issues with French and German sites http://news.com.com/2100-1023-963132.html - it seems that Google do exclude certain sites from French and German searches - possibly the rest of Europe gets a warning as a legal safety net.
I think the sponsors are for each sensitive subject but Google is only vocal on the Jewish misery and not on Darfur, Serbs/Croats, Slavery for 400 years, Japanese concentration camps. Please note: I know this is a sensitive subject and I didn't mean to offend anyone either.
I got the warning as well, clicked the link and it took me to... http://www.google.com/explanation.html Text as follows... hmm, I searched for the "n-word" and all the derrogatory terms for blacks, hispanics, gays, etc and the only one that returns the warning page is if you search for "jew"... LOL.. WTF is Google thinking ??? A search for the term "fags" yields this result first (godhatesfags.com) ??? Search the N-Word and this page come up http://www.tightrope.cc/jokes.htm
For the previous poster, fags is way too generic, fag is cigarette for British people... Anyways, here's the screenshot people asked for.
they removed them and that is a note saying they have done so. the message is mainly for people that had search that keyword before and saw those results. google isn't going to look at every keyword and delete some results,but if they get complaints they will look at it. i've seen a message before saying that some results have been removed because they were illegal.
I remember reading something about this months ago. If I remember right I think it had something to do with google bombing by a neo nazi site, that was showing up in top ranks for "Jew"
I personally think it´s a good practice to clean up the SERPs from things that are actually a crime in many countries, so I hope Google extends that practice to the other insulting terms about other races. I´ve done the same searches as Bryce mentioned and I´m also disturbed about the results. I can´t really see how the second and third result when you look for the n word can be less offensive than the ones Google removed for the keyword Jew.