Google has pledged to fix a new search facility that answers "Jews" to the question: "Who runs Hollywood?"

With its new "direct answers" service, Google aims to cut down on the amount of time users spend seeking information by algorithmically answering common queries.

However, when the question "Who runs Hollywood?" is entered, as well as the word "Jews" the search engine supplies a link to the "New Observer", a website brimming with antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Google quickly issued a statement promising to deal with the problem, saying: "The views expressed by such sites are not in any way endorsed by Google." By last Friday afternoon, the search was no longer producing the offensive result.

The same answer also appeared on Google mobile searches, and popped up when the search engine auto-completed the request "Who runs Hollywood?"

Google explained that the racist website had been linked to by many others, giving it perceived "authority" according to the company's page-rank algorithm.