Where have the obituaries gone?

[Shekinah]

For years I have checked the Jehovah's Witnesses news on Google search, there was always many obituaries for our brothers.​

Then in 2020 I noticed a slight increase in the numbers, at the same time I noticed that the Watchtower started to add news updates from the jw.org website covering all sorts of subjects which they never done before. As these news articles increased, I noticed the obituaries decreased to the point where there isn't any.​

It's these things that concern me, we are told that we shouldn't be sharing links from jw.org on Facebook or social media, but now it's fine to post information from jw.org on Google, it's these underhanded moves which so happens to coincide with the rise in brothers deaths that makes it difficult to have the trust I should have for those given a position to care for Christ's sheep.​

 

[Watchman]

If you search JWs in Google News and refine it to the past week you will get obits.

 

[Shekinah]

Thank you brother I will give it a try. Where as before you'd just type in Jehovah's Witnesses and click on news and they were in amongst the rest of the news, this changed since they added their jw.org articles.

 

[Shekinah]

Just typed in several dates and only a UK one came up, where as before they were mostly from the US and there were many of them and that's without the pandemic, something's definitely changed. Maybe someone else give it a try it may be my browser🤔

 

[Watchman]

Just typed in several dates and only a UK one came up, where as before they were mostly from the US and there were many of them and that's without the pandemic, something's definitely changed. Maybe someone else give it a try it may be my browser🤔

If you want US obits you probably need to use a VPN set to one of the states in the US

 

[Shekinah]

If you want US obits you probably need to use a VPN set to one of the states in the US

Thank you brother.
To be honest originally I wasn't even looking for obits they'd show up all the time just when searching general JW news. Then I started seeing jw.org news showing up too, just strange how after over a decade of searching, then since 2020 it's all changed. I'm using google.com which use to bring up all the US obituaries and no UK ones, now there's none.

 

[SusanB]

Thank you brother.
To be honest originally I wasn't even looking for obits they'd show up all the time just when searching general JW news. Then I started seeing jw.org news showing up too, just strange how after over a decade of searching, then since 2020 it's all changed. I'm using google.com which use to bring up all the US obituaries and no UK ones, now there's none.

There are ”tricks” or methods to make a website show up more in the Google search results. They change the method of how search results are compiled (I think they refer to it as algorithyms) from time to time but webmasters know the tricks of the trade to get a particular website more prominence in search results. When I did a search for Jehovah’s Witnesses and then clicked in the news tab, I got a lot of various news articles favorable to the Org and the JW.org website but I also got the child abuse charges in Pennsylvania. So, my guess is that they are tweeking their online presence to drown out the child abuse articles. There are various ways to do that with source code, links, meta tags, etc.

Here is a screen shot of what I found on page 1 of a search.

 

[Medi-tator]

There are ”tricks” or methods to make a website show up more in the Google search results. They change the method of how search results are compiled (I think they refer to it as algorithyms) from time to time but webmasters know the tricks of the trade to get a particular website more prominence in search results. When I did a search for Jehovah’s Witnesses and then clicked in the news tab, I got a lot of various news articles favorable to the Org and the JW.org website but I also got the child abuse charges in Pennsylvania. So, my guess is that they are tweeking their online presence to drown out the child abuse articles. There are various ways to do that with source code, links, meta tags, etc.

Here is a screen shot of what I found on page 1 of a search.

View attachment 4350

Al Gore and The Rhythms

 

[Shekinah]

There are ”tricks” or methods to make a website show up more in the Google search results. They change the method of how search results are compiled (I think they refer to it as algorithyms) from time to time but webmasters know the tricks of the trade to get a particular website more prominence in search results. When I did a search for Jehovah’s Witnesses and then clicked in the news tab, I got a lot of various news articles favorable to the Org and the JW.org website but I also got the child abuse charges in Pennsylvania. So, my guess is that they are tweeking their online presence to drown out the child abuse articles. There are various ways to do that with source code, links, meta tags, etc.

Here is a screen shot of what I found on page 1 of a search.

View attachment 4350

Yes sister I agree, when I use to run my own website on Google, there were I think meta tags and ways of making certain things show up on Google more than others, things have been updated since then, but what you said makes sense.