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New site exposes the web pages people hide from Google

Published Jul 16th, 2014 11:41AM EDT
Hidden From Google

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Following a ruling recently made by the European Court of Justice, Google was forced to create a system whereby European citizens can instruct Google to remove specific web pages from its search index. This means that when people search certain terms that would have previously returned a particular web page among the results, that page is no longer served by Google. The new “right to be forgotten” rule has been somewhat controversial, with many people calling it censorship.

Now, one developer has taken matters into his own hands and created a website with the sole purpose of exposing search terms and web pages that have been hidden from Google.

Appropriately dubbed “Hidden from Google,” the website’s sole purpose is to list pages that have been removed from Google’s index in Europe as a result of right to be forgotten requests. Listings on the site are scarce for the time being, but ZDNet reports that the site’s creator is working on a system to verify user submissions.

The site also finds some hidden pages on its own. “In a few (rare) instances, we search for censored articles by search terms which are inspired by well known scandals / news stories in the recent past,” Hidden from Google creator Afaq Tariq told ZDNet.

Do you know of a web page that was hidden from Google search? User submissions can be made on Hidden from Google’s homepage.

Zach Epstein
Zach Epstein Executive Editor

Zach Epstein has been the Executive Editor at BGR for more than 10 years. He manages BGR’s editorial team and ensures that best practices are adhered to. He also oversees the Ecommerce team and directs the daily flow of all content. Zach first joined BGR in 2007 as a Staff Writer covering business, technology, and entertainment.

His work has been quoted by countless top news organizations, and he was recently named one of the world's top 10 “power mobile influencers” by Forbes. Prior to BGR, Zach worked as an executive in marketing and business development with two private telcos.