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14 commentsSaturday, January 24, 2009

White House Unblocks Google

Removes 2400 robots.txt lines from website

If the outgoing Bush Administration was thought to run a secretive, bubble-icious type of White House, the Obama Administration so far is proving to be the opposite. The Whitehouse.gov redesign for greater transparency has already been widely noted—Presidential blog and all—but the website is now much more open to a new kind of visitor: the search engine spider.

On Monday, Whitehouse.gov was still blocking search engine access to a tremendous amount of website information. In all, the robots.txt file used the “Disallow” command 2,400 times, blocking search engine access to information on earmarks, African American history, photo essays from various places and events, first lady initiatives, the budget, defense, on and on.

White House Unblocks Google


Obviously, if posted on the White House website, none of this information would be considered classified, or even sensitive, so it’s unclear why Bush’s web crew felt the need to prevent the site from being searchable.

Regardless, all search crawler barriers were removed with the Bushes’ furniture, the “Disallow” command lines reduced from 2,400 to basically none.

Requests for comment and/or explanations from prior and current administrations were not returned. Meanwhile, it appears President Obama will be able to keep his Blackberry after all—with some super-encryption functionality added to it. 
 

 

minor spelling mistake

Yo dude, you made a minor spelling mistake! :)

You said, "fist lady initiatives" instead of "first lady initiatives".

If you made that mistake before yesterday, that would be seriously funny! And I'd probably comment further (use your imagination here)

Now, I just have to be serious about it and tell you it was just a minor spelling mistake.

Later!

Knowing Jake...

That wasn't a mistake. ;)

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