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Unhappy With Photo, New Hampshire Town Wins Battle With Google

An image from a Google search result for Londonderry, N.H. The image was recently removed.

Should you visit Londonderry, N.H., about 45 miles northwest of Boston, you would be greeted by a friendly, roadside “Welcome to Londonderry” sign that pays tribute to its many apple orchards.

Should you search for “Londonderry New Hampshire” on Google, you would be greeted by an image of five women holding long guns, with a man folding his arms at the center, beside a map of the town.

At least, you would have been until Google relented to requests from local officials that the tech company remove the not-so-welcoming image from a “knowledge panel” box appearing at the top of search results. Local officials made several attempts in February to contact someone at Google but received no response.

They had resigned themselves to the likelihood that the search giant would never concern itself with the issue, but the image was removed from the “knowledge panel” on Tuesday. (The map of the town remains.)

Perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not, the image was removed less than one day after The New Hampshire Union Leader published an article about the town’s efforts to remove the photo, and hours after The New York Times sent an inquiry to Google’s press office.

A Google spokeswoman declined to comment on why the image was removed.

But the news was welcome to John Farrell, chairman of the town’s council. He said “three or four” residents had complained about the photo, which he felt didn’t accurately reflect the community.

“If you Google other towns in New Hampshire, it really talks about the culture of the town, not about one individual,” he said. “A town is about 25,000 people, not about one person.”

In this case, that one person is Al Baldasaro, a state representative. The photo came from his wedding, and it caused a minor stir when the image surfaced in 2013.

Mr. Baldasaro, who did not respond to a request for comment, was co-chairman of the national veterans’ coalition for President Trump’s campaign. He attracted national attention in August after saying that Hillary Clinton “should be put in the firing line and shot for treason.”

Search interest in his name — the comments caused a national backlash — could have contributed to this image gaining larger prominence in Google’s opaque algorithms, which determine photo placement. He supported the town’s efforts to remove it from the Londonderry search results, according to The Union Leader.

“It has no business being there,” he told the newspaper.

Google declined to comment on how the image ended up there in the first place. Manipulating which photo appears in the “knowledge panel” is a desired skill of internet marketers — a restaurant owner would want an appetizing dish instead of a blurry shot of the building exterior — but it’s unusual for a government entity to concern itself with the image.

Michael Ramsdell, the town’s legal counsel, sent a letter to Google on Feb. 17, but said on Tuesday that he never heard back from the company. In his correspondence, he said the town was not concerned with a connection to guns, but rather sought an image “that fairly represents the town of Londonderry.”

He offered other points of pride for Google to feature, like the world-traveling high school marching band, and invited Google employees to visit the town.

“Londonderry is a wonderful town of about 25,000 people who choose to live there because it offers a range of experiences from a regional airport to thriving apple orchards,” he wrote.

“We are confident that your lasting image of Londonderry will have nothing to do with the photograph currently displayed upon a Google search of Londonderry.”

A correction was made on 
March 10, 2017

An article on Wednesday about efforts by Londonderry, N.H., to change the town’s search image on Google described its location incorrectly. Londonderry is northwest of Boston, not northeast.

How we handle corrections

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 13 of the New York edition with the headline: Town Fights to Pick How It’s Seen on the Web. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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