It’s been a long day writing out reports for clients. Taking a break (!) I opened my feedreader and was was curious to find a rising trend “nikki catsouras decapitated” on Google Trends – no idea who she was so I popped over to Google Trends to see what the fuss was about:
I was NOT interested in seeing the images of the poor girl, but I was interested in seeing if Google Image Search did indeed deliver the ‘goods’ to this rising wave of obviously too-curious-for-their-own-good searchers.
Eyes squinted to avoid seeing any carnage, I searched for the girl’s name.
I was kind of shocked to see, that even with Google STRICT SAFE SEARCH on, you can still see the grisly car accident photos leaked to the press by scumbags if you search for JUST HER NAME on Google Image Search. I took a screenshot but wouldn’t dare post them here or even link to a source.
Surely it wouldn’t be that much of a hassle for Google to remove these images, and clean up the SERPS for this and related terms and give a much more sanitised SERP, promoting sites like this Nikki Catsouras page and help the family out a little. Maybe Matt Cutts knows a bod at Images.
According to Newsweek magazine, the Catsouras “accident was so gruesome the coroner wouldn’t allow her parents to identify their daughter’s body.” However, photographs of the scene of Catsouras’ death were taken by California Highway Patrol (CHP) officers as part of standard fatal vehicle accident procedures. These photos were then forwarded to others within the Department, and then spread across the Internet. WIKI
It is not Google’s fault of course, but Google IS the internet to many people and of course it’s probably not as easy as it first sounds to clean it up but this is one SERP I’d like to see hand edited. One time I would like Google NOT to deliver so well.
That’s not all Matt Cutts might be interested in -
According to trendmicro.com, a site has been optimized to appear as the first result in Internet searches for “Nikki Catsouras.” The malware contains several variants of worms and viruses.
Maybe the spam team really does need to look at this SERP!
PS – I wouldn’t suggest you search for these images. They will undoubtedly upset you.
**** Link Removed ******
Mark that link is NOT SUITABLE for this blog I am afraid! Please note anybody else dropping links to the actual images will be removed. (whether being helpful or not). This post isn’t about spreading that muck I am afraid but thanks for the contribution :)
Hardly dropping a link. It was 4chan that caused the search spike, as they made it into a meme.
@Mark – that’s why I edited my original comment. It’s not the dropping the link I was on about it was the nature of the link that was dropped. :)
Shaun, while I agree with your expressed outrage, isn’t it possible that maybe (oh yes) this post will send some of your 40K visitors scrambling to see the damage for themselves? Poor girl, poor family. When a drowned baby humpback whale washed up on a local beach recently, some onlookers climbed up on the body so they could get closer photos. There are no limits…
Of course. There are sick (and curious) people everywhere who show a lack of respect. I am an SEO. I just surmise abut Google and get traffic to my site. I thought long and hard about posting this, but I thought it relevant enough, and I don’t mind muddying the SERPS for this term and advising people not to look for the graphic pictures, and advising others that searching for those images might indeed infect their computers.
”Shaun, while I agree with your expressed outrage, isn’t it possible that maybe (oh yes) this post will send some of your 40K visitors scrambling to see the damage for themselves? what a cynic ! – you wouldnt post stuff to drive google traffic would you ! Id never heard of Nikki Catsouras- Anyway ,I looked, but thats just me ..number 37,869 and counting ;P
Actually 52,000 visitors this month. :) Martin you should comment on tis blog a lot more, for obvious reasons too. :)
Hi shaun Ive lost a bit of love for my old site as I dont see it like i used to on page one :( 52,000 wow that a lot of visits – those pictures arent that bad ive seen worse, Martin