Chinese national anthem finally tops Google search results after mix-ups with Hong Kong protest song at overseas sports events
- Check by Post finds city government webpage with anthem download links tops English and Chinese results
- Government says no payment made to Google to improve webpage positioning
A webpage dedicated to the Chinese national anthem has replaced one providing information about a Hong Kong protest song as the top result for a Google search on the subject after a government bureau made updates to allow people to download the tune directly from its website.
Authorities told the Post on Wednesday they had not paid Google to change the rank of the website of the Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Bureau in the results, but they had optimised relevant webpages to boost their rankings.
The government has been in close communication with the company over the search result rankings.
Hong Kong ice hockey body advises other associations on how to avoid anthem blunders
A check by the Post on Wednesday morning found the bureau’s webpage providing information about “March of the Volunteers”, including links for audio and video downloads, ranked first in a Google search for “Hong Kong national anthem”.
The bureau’s webpage also topped the same search in Chinese on Wednesday afternoon.
The bureau recently updated the webpage to include a direct download link for instrumental and sung versions of the national anthem. It previously only referred internet users to a central government site offering the files.
The anthem’s musical notation and lyrics, as well as the relevant regulations and etiquette for playing and singing it, can also be found on the webpage. The content was last updated on Monday, according to website records.
Asked when the changes were made to include the files and whether payment to Google was involved, the bureau on Wednesday only said the government had been providing download links on relevant webpages and would continue optimising the content.
The Innovation, Technology and Industry Bureau referred to minister Sun Dong’s earlier remarks, in which he said the government had not paid for advertisements.
Google’s anthem results for Hong Kong have improved after optimisation: Sun Dong
Sun had said the bureau’s Office of the Government Chief Information Officer had been working to optimise their webpages to improve their rankings in search results.
“After more than three months of continuous operation, the position of the relevant webpages on the first page of the search results has been significantly improved, which did not involve paying Google to purchase advertisements,” he said.
Professor William Wong Kam-fai, associate dean of Chinese University’s engineering faculty, said the changes to the search result rankings were the result of the government including more popular keywords in its pages, which helped to improve website traffic.
The addition of downloadable files could also help garner more hits, he said, but added the links should have been added far earlier so organisers could more easily find the correct song.
Lawmaker Duncan Chiu Tat-kun, representing the technology and innovation sector, said the addition of a dedicated webpage for the national anthem with links to download versions and an embedded video featuring the song had led to the changes in the search results.
Authorities could commission tech companies to devise further strategies to optimise search results, he suggested.
The changes followed a series of mix-ups involving the national anthem and the protest song at several international sports events.
The latest incident involved the Hong Kong Ice Hockey Association, which was thrust into the spotlight when the wrong song was played for 10 seconds following the men’s team victory over Iran at the Ice Hockey World Championship’s third division in Bosnia and Herzegovina on February 28.
Hong Kong sports minister vows to continue funding for ice hockey athletes
The Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong, China, said it was unclear whether the ice hockey team had given a hard copy of the anthem to the event organisers, a move which could have prevented the blunder.
The association was given a month, until early May, to provide a written explanation of its failure to follow the relevant guidelines and a road map for improving its corporate governance.
The government also threw its weight behind the federation, saying it would consider reducing funding for the association as punishment if the sports body went ahead with revoking the association’s membership.
It could become the first organisation to be penalised over an anthem blunder.
