UPDATE: See bottom of post.
Many of you emailed Google, tweeted and “liked” (8,600 likes) the post I wrote about Google censoring shopping results for guns and ammo. It worked! Google appears to have relented and gun and ammo results are back in the Google Shopping index.
I am pleased that Google realized that a sport, hobby and way-of-life which tens of millions of children and adults actively participate is not “harmful” to include in the Google Shopping index. If people are searching for “5.56mm ammunition”, they want to see “5.56mm ammunition”, removing the ability to compare prices of 5.56mm ammunition is just silly.
I was beginning to wonder where it would end. Were they planning on banning knives, handcuffs, ninja stars, replica swords? What about banning shooting books in the Google Books index?
UPDATE: It was definitely working for me a few hours ago, but now when I search I am not getting the same results. A reader from Canada reported that it is working for him. If I search for “rifle scope” in Google Shopping I get no results, but if I search in the main Google engine I get some broken results.
It is working for anyone else?