Google Denies “Blackout” of Conservative Sites

The word was spread throughout the day on Tuesday, that Google had taken some sort of action to demote leading politically conservative websites in its search results. Newsbusters alleged Tuesday that Google “has seemingly blacklisted numerous conservative websites,” listing Breitbart, The Washington Free Beacon, The Blaze, The Daily Wire and other top sites on the right.

Another reporter, Charlie Nash of Mediaite, posted about this as well, while also noting that some left-wing sites had also apparently disappeared from results.

By Tuesday night, the sites had all been restored to Google’s search results—and the company’s public liaison for its search business issued an explanation.

“Today we became aware of an issue that impacted some navigational and site operator searches. We investigated & have since fixed the bug. Contrary to some speculation, this did not target particular sites or political ideologies,” Danny Sullivan, Google’s public liaison of search, tweeted Tuesday afternoon. “Today’s issue affected sites representing a range of content and different viewpoints. Our ranking systems don’t index, rank or classify content based on political lean… We apologize for the concerns caused by this issue and appreciate it being brought to our attention.”

One former Google search employee backed the company’s explanation.