Joe Biden Removed From 'US Presidents' Search Results, Google Responds

Former US president Joe Biden's tenure at the White House was completely omitted from Google search queries that included "US Presidents", "United States Presidents" and "US Presidents in order", a report in The Independent has claimed. For a brief period on Thursday (Jan 23), social media users complained that Mr Biden was not featuring in the list of presidents to have served the USA.

The list showed President Donald Trump to have served as the last two presidents of the US with Mr Biden's name nowhere to be found. However, prior to the Republican leader's 2016 tenure, the list showed correct results, naming Barack Obama, George Bush, and Bill Clinton, and going back to George Washington.

Users posted screenshots of their results, showing how Mr Biden had been removed. It is not clear how long Mr Biden was written out of Google search history but the glitch was fixed around 2 am ET (12:30 PM IST).

.@Google so if I type in US Presidents I get a list of US Presidents in order of when they were in office except there's no @JoeBiden.

Anyone know why? @searchliaison what's going on? #SEO @BARRY pic.twitter.com/BX9XKTl0Ab — Kristine (@schachin on Threads) ?? (@schachin) January 23, 2025

More WTF is happening...

When you Google "US President 2020-2024", it's all tRump...Biden's name only appears on the Wikipedia results on the search page.

Who paid Google to initiate this SEO bullsh*t to help erase an entire presidency? pic.twitter.com/UVbD9sOKzI — KJ Bennett (@KJBennettBeauty) January 23, 2025

Google responds

Quizzed about the issue, Google acknowledged the mistake and said it had been caused due to some "data error".

"There was a brief data error in our knowledge graph," a Google spokesperson was quoted as saying by CNBC. "We identified the root cause and resolved it quickly."

Internet reacts

Before Google deployed countermeasures to sort the situation, a section of social media users claimed omitting Mr Biden's name was big tech's latest attempt to cosy up to President Trump.

"If this stands, this will be one of the boldest and most dangerous moments in the existence of the internet, as it will be a clear show of force that those in opposition will disappear completely," wrote one user, while another added: "Google United States Presidents and Biden is not on there. This is bigger than social media."

A third commented: "Who paid Google to initiate this SEO bullsh*t to help erase an entire presidency?"

Notably, Google was among the several big tech companies to have donated money to Mr Trump's inauguration fund. The search engine giant donated $1 million to the fund with CEO Sundar Pichai holding a prominent standing position on stage alongside other tech CEO's at the ceremony held on Monday.