This was NOT news when it "happened" ...

UPDATE: The offensive Michell Obama picture has reportedly been removed from the website, Hot Girls, that posted the image.

The Hot Girls blog posted a short explanation in Chinese, along with a loosely translated apology in English, explaining, "I am very sorry for this article, and that this is the program automatically issued a document from the article. Do not the subject of race and politics make the discussion too radical and sincere hope that the world is very peaceful." The Guardian also reported that the site took down the offensive image of Michelle Obama.

Google has purchased online ads in an effort to explain to users why an offensive image of Michelle Obama is appearing, and is ranked so highly, in its Google Image search results.

The Google ad, titled "Offensive Search Results," appears directly over the pictures of the First Lady that show up when users perform a Google Image search for "Michelle Obama." (see the screenshot below).

Google's advertisement reads, "Sometimes our search results can be offensive. We agree." It then continues with a longer explanation (read the full text here) on why certain search results appear, and why they may be highly ranked.

Sometimes Google search results from the Internet can include disturbing content, even from innocuous queries. We assure you that the views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google. [...] We apologize if you've had an upsetting experience using Google. We hope you understand our position regarding offensive results.

The image was previously removed by Google on the grounds that the site hosting the Michelle Obama picture "violated Google's guidelines by serving malware to visitors," SearchEngineLand writes.

Now, however, the offensive photo has been posted to another site that does not violate Google rules.

SearchEngineLand points out that Google has taken out ads for other search terms that may turn up offensive results. An ad similar to the one featured with the "Michelle Obama" query turns up for Google searches for "Jew."

Happy Thanksgiving! Happy Turkey Day! And if you are looking for Michelle Obama Monkey, You're the turkey!

Michelle Obama? First Lady Obama?
Were you looking for Michelle Obama Monkey? Turkey!
Does this look like a Michelle Obama Photo or a Michelle Obama Picture to you? Turkey!

FD: Just playing around with the Google Image and Web computer searches... no meaning ful results yet.

Ben Franklin thought the Wild Turkey should have been our National Bird....What Bird would Michelle Obama pick?

The safety feature on my Google was set to OFF. So, I was not seeing the Michelle Monkey image. With it on Moderate, it appeared...

Michelle Obama 'racist' picture that is topping Google Images removed from blog.

Hot Girls website apologises over 'monkey' picture that had been appearing at the top of Google Images searches

Blog hosting an offensive image of Michelle Obama with monkey features has removed it and posted an apology.

The image, which has been appearing at the top of search results when the words "Michelle Obama" are put into Google Images, was posted on a blog called Hot Girls, which is hosted by the Google-owned blog service, Blogger.

Hot Girls' owner has today removed the image, which appears to have originally been put up with a blog post on 21 October last year, and displayed an apology in Chinese with a very loose English translation.

Google had refused to remove the offensive image from its picture search listings, despite complaints that it is racist, instead opting to run an ad next to it explaining its policy on how search engine results work.

A spokesman for Google said that the Hot Girls blog and image may still temporarily appear when some users make Google Images searches but that it was coming out of the search engine's indexing system.

Earlier today Google's ad explaining why it kept the image in search listings was being sporadically replaced by other ads.

A spokesman for Google UK said the company was looking into why that was happening for some users and that it was not a "deliberate" action to remove the explanation.

"We would generally keep it [the explanation] up for as long as the blog [hosting the content] was up," he added.

Google warned, however, that the image of the US first lady could easily reappear in its listings if another blog posted it.

It is not the first time that Google has taken out explanation ads against search queries. In 2004 when searches for the word "Jew" returned antisemitic website results Google responded with a similar approach.

• To contact the MediaGuardian news desk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 3353 3857. For all other inquiries please call the main Guardian switchboard on 020 3353 2000.

FD: I decided to leave it up and make it a lesson to people about posting images that you don't want your mother to see, when she is using a Moderate Search Sitting on her Google.