Google, what the?

A 2007 OCA post about a supremely sketchy and now-defunct “honors” outfit, the National Dean’s List, is at the top of Google search results for the NDL. Yay me, I suppose.

But look at what Google displays when one searches for national deans list, no quotation marks:

[“The National Dean's List sponsors the largest Free Book Program conducted by any publisher in any field. The books are provided, free of charge, ...”]

That chunk of text isn’t even from the post I wrote; it’s from a comment on the post left by someone who may have had a connection to the company.

When one searches for national deans list with quotation marks, my post appears at the top as a featured snippet:

[“Every year, professors, deans and leaders of civic and community service organizations affiliated with post secondary institutions are invited to nominate outstanding students who have achieved ‘Dean’s List’ honors, or comparable academic achievement, have a ‘B+’ average or are in the upper 10% of their classes.”]

That’s something I quoted from the now-defunct NDL website. I prefaced the quotation with these words: “If I were a genuine high-achieving college student, I might not have reason to doubt the claims on the NDL website.”

A sentence from the post that gives an accurate idea of the post:

The National Dean’s List is about as selective as a telephone book.

What made it possible for me to come to that conclusion? Mail from the NDL — letters of “invitation for nomination” — addressed to me (then almost thirty years out of college) and to a non-existent person, both names taken from mailing lists. The 2007 post explains in more detail.

The company marketing the National Dean’s List folded in 2007, so I’m surprised to see that my post about the NDL still gets visits daily. There must be many people aspiring to live in the past. At any rate, the National Dean’s List remains defunct.