Google Offers Suicide-Prevention Hotline with Some Queries

Google takes much pride in its algorithms, it is a company built by engineers after all, and it is especially proud of its search-ranking algorithm, still its biggest product. Over time, the company has always steered clear of adjusting the search results manually or intervening in any other way, even if it was clear that the algorithm didn't provide the most useful results. Recently, though, it has made two additions offering specific results for two types of queries, the latest of which being searches related to suicide.

When the search engine reads a query that it determines to be focused on suicide, things like "ways to commit suicide" or "I want to die," it will now display a notice with a red phone icon and an emergency telephone number for suicide prevention. The notice will show up on top of the regular search results and is differentiated from the organic entries. It is also different from search ads, which usually show up at the very top and are marked by the yellow background.

The notice is only shown in the US for now and it just shows up for a relatively small number of queries. Google says the last part was a conscious decision as it is playing it safe and only displaying the suicide hotline notice on selected searches. This isn't Google's first move of this kind, several months ago the search engine started listing the number for the US national poison control hotline for searches that related to poisoning. This was done after receiving a suggestion from a user.

"A mother wrote in a suggestion to us — her daughter had swallowed something that she thought was dangerous, and she had a hard time finding poison control," Dr. Roni Zeiger, chief health strategist for Google, told the New York Times. "Now when you search for poison control or similar queries, we make it straightforward to find the number for poison control."

"That got us thinking," he added. This led to the recently launched suicide hotline notice, but things might not end here. Google might expand the queries for which the notices show up and it could also add other notices and helpful information for other types of queries.