# Is Google playing fast-and-loose with Mr Phelps? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 1, 2007, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866 "2007-11-01T13:52:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 1:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/1 "2007-11-01T13:52:51Z")
Following the glorious victory of the civil courts over the Westboro Baptist Church, I decided to see if there was any ranting about the court’s verdict on the site. Amazingly, I had forgotten the URL “godhatesfags”, so I googled “Westboro Baptist Church”. I was surprised by the Google description: > [@](#): > > **Westboro Baptist Church - [Godhatesfags.com](http://Godhatesfags.com)** > Site of anti-homosexual propagandist Fred Phelps of Topeka, Kansas, who styles himself and his followers as a “Baptist Church.” Surely, surely, nobody from Westboro actually wrote that, did they? I know Google have done some behind-the-scenes things before (e.g. “French Military Victories”) - is this another example? ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/2 "2007-11-01T13:58:18Z")
That description appears to come from Google Directory. I’m not yet sure how it gets into there. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 1:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/3 "2007-11-01T13:59:17Z")
It has to be entered by the webmaster. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/4 "2007-11-01T14:01:23Z")
Ah. They’re getting the description from the Open Directory Project, which is human-edited, but not necessarily - in fact probably most often _not_ - by the owner of the linked site. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/5 "2007-11-01T14:06:16Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] I know Google have done some behind-the-scenes things before (e.g. “French Military Victories”) - is this another example? [/QUOTE] Google had nothing to do with this. Someone just spoofed the layout of Google. Try it now, and note that the graphics are in different places when you use search vs. “I’m feeling lucky.” ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/6 "2007-11-01T14:06:32Z")
Each submitted site has various details entered by the person who submits the site to [DMOZ.org](http://DMOZ.org), who has to provide a return email address. DMOZ is meant to have human intervention to approve things. But I guess some things slip through. OR, the human intervention occurred at the editorial stage within DMOZ itself. It never occurred to me that you could submit any site, not just your own. D’oh. Mind you, if Phred had a proper META DESCRIPTION tag on his putrid front page, then he’d avoid this. But I’m not going to tell him. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/7 "2007-11-01T14:19:38Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Mind you, if Phred had a proper META DESCRIPTION tag on his putrid front page, then he’d avoid this. [/quote] I suspect that’s why Google used the ODP description, or it might be their policy when it comes to controversial sites. > [@](#): > > But I’m not going to tell him. I doubt he’d listen anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/8 "2007-11-01T14:27:51Z")
I can’t find any way of discovering how many people are listed as editors for any given group. There’s a fair list of sites in the WBC subcategory. [http://www.dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Race-Ethnic-Religious\_Relations/Hate/Hate\_Groups/Christian/Westboro\_Baptist\_Church/](http://www.dmoz.org/Society/Issues/Race-Ethnic-Religious_Relations/Hate/Hate_Groups/Christian/Westboro_Baptist_Church/) I guess it could all be the work of one ODP contributor, but it might just be that all the contributors agree on that description. I’m not even all that sure Phred would disagree with much of it, except the bit about being self-styled, maybe. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/9 "2007-11-01T14:31:34Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] Mind you, if Phred had a proper META DESCRIPTION tag on his putrid front page, then he’d avoid this. But I’m not going to tell him. [/QUOTE] I’d always assumed that the “summary” on the Google page comes from META tags on the site itself, but from this thread it appears that it doesn’t. Or is it only for certain sites that Google uses the ODP? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/10 "2007-11-01T14:34:37Z")
AFAIK, it goes like this: 1. Use meta description tag. 2. If none, check ODP. 3. If none, take first text on page. In the old days, at stage 3, this meant that the description would sometimes say “Home | About | News” etc. where the navigation was built from text. However, I think Google’s got a bit smarter and now identifies the first ‘real’ text on the page. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2007, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-google-playing-fast-and-loose-with-mr-phelps/424866/11 "2007-11-01T15:07:55Z")
It’s quite strange really - whoever coded Phred’s site knew enough about META tags to include: \ The page source looks like it has been hacked around a lot by hand