I have a question.

[whometense]

Does anyone know the mechanism by which the Yahoo!, Google, and Topix News queries pick up stories?

I've been getting Google and Yahoo "John Kerry" stories since the election, and the Topix stories for a month or so. It baffles me how certain very old stories get picked up day after day. For example, there's one titled "Candidates race for the finish line" that dates back to September or October, yet still shows up nearly every day.

The reason I bring this up today is that sometimes old, very viciously anti-Kerry stories will just show up seemingly out of the blue. This never happens with old positive stories. Today's was a beaut from over a year ago which I'd rather not post so as to avoid stirring up old evils. But it got me to wondering about the process, and about whether there is someone(?) or some entity stirring the pot somehow to make sure these stories keep floating to the top.

Or am I just paranoid?

[elshiva]

1. I thought it was the stories that get the most hits?

Dunno...

[TayTay]

2. Wonky explanation

The meta-data in the stories tagging lines is messed up. It is getting tagged with current dates. So it is swimming in the current stream of news stories. Whoever is responsible for this story needs to hire a real editor who will remove the offending tags, make sure the date stamp on the story is current and them put it into the info stream. (XML tagging anyone?) But snce all the news editors have been outsourced to Bagalore, there is no one here to edit the friggin thing. And the news media doesn't care because it is not profitable to care.

Okay, there is always the simple explanation. Someone f*cked up. Try searching by date.

[whometense]

3. That sounds about right,

and I imagined if anyone knew, you would. Thanks. Though I retain my dark suspicions about this one particular story I'd never seen before, over a year old, and suddenly swimming out there in the stream.

[Pirate Smile]

4. This one, right? I know, it is annoying.

Candidates sprint for finish line
Rapid City Journal Mon, 11 Apr 2005 10:38 PM PDT
MILWAUKEE - President Bush and Sen. John Kerry reached for the finish line Monday in a campaign for the ages,each claiming to be the strong, steady leader needed in a time of terrorism. "The world is watching," said the Democratic challenger in a race that defied safe prediction.

The story is actually dated Nov 2, 2004, not 11 Apr 2005.

[whometense]

5. hahaha

Yeah, that's the one!! Pops up every damned day!! I think TayTay's explanation about the tagging fits this one. It's such a stupid, innocuous story.

[foreverdem]

8. I kept seeing that one too!

Months after the election! I had no idea it was still up there.

[TayTay]

6. The night guy was drunk?

And he was sleeping when the news stories went by on the old assembly line. And he spilled his beer on the machines that housed the archives and bad things happened. Old, dead and buried news stories bubbled up from the news graveyard and tried to re-infect their evilness into the world. Sigh! I still blame cost-cutting though. It's still cheaper to hire drunks and incompetents than to watch over the news.

(News is fragile. It has a tender ego and needs to be babied. Otherwise you wind up as a distributor of something horrible like Robert Novak. Imagine having to answer to God for that on Judgement Day.)

[sandnsea]

7. New link to it

That could get it picked up by a robot too.