Tech Shout!

KinderStart.com, a website offering to parents who care for small children, is taking Google to court after the search engine suddenly downgraded it.

The downgrading caused a “cataclysmic fall” in advertising revenue and the number of monthly page views. Google dropped its ranking without any warning in March last year, causing it to fall from 10 million hits a month to just three million.

The civil suit by KinderStart.com of Norwalk seeks financial damages and more information about Google’s secret method for ranking sites. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose, seeks class-action status for other sites that have seen their rankings drop without warning or explanation from Google.

Gregory Yu, a San Mateo attorney representing KinderStart.com, said that if there was a human behind Google pulling some levers, people should find out and that should be clear to the public.

He added that if there was an inappropriate process or fault with the search engine, it should be disclosed by the court so that everyone can get a peek at it working. Google has yet not stated its side of the story.