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Bush is 'Miserable Failure' No More!
Techtree News Staff, Jan 29, 2007 1632 hrs ISTFor over two years now, US President, George Bush, has been topping Google searches for the term "miserable failure"...
For over two years now, US President, George Bush, has been topping Google searches for the term "miserable failure". Now, all that's about to change - what with Google having designed a new algorithm to minimize the impact of this 'Google Bomb'.
A 'Google Bomb' is simply the term come to describe the way in which online pranksters are trying to influence rankings on the search engine. And in this, Prez Bush is not alone. UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has also been ranking high on the Google index for a search on the term "liar". Even the 2004 Presidential candidate from the Democratic Party and Bush's main opponent, John F Kerry, was linked to a search on "waffles".
Google is keeping its new algorithm under wraps, but it is true that now on, a search on the term "miserable failure" will lead not to the official Web site of the US President, but instead to a 2003 BBC News article about the "miserable failure" search.
Google says the reason for diffusing the Bush bomb is the need to see legitimate commentary on its index in future. The other more important reason being cited is that people tend to perceive Google Bombs as Google's endorsement of particular views, which is not true.
In fact, Head of Google's Webspam Team, Matt Cutts, wrote in his blog that till now, Google Bombs have not been a very high priority for the company. But that over time, the company has been seeing more and more people assuming that these are Google's opinions, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Google-bombed queries. Cutts wrote that as this is not true, it seemed like it was worth trying to correct the misperception.
Meanwhile, author of the "miserable failure" Google Bomb, Washington-based Political Activist and Software Programmer, George Johnston, voiced the view that Google's decision is politically motivated, and that though he is unhappy with the tweak, he hasn't given up the fight just yet.
However, one Google Bomb diffused does not automatically translate into all Bombs having been diffused. There are some Google Bombs that continue to operate. For instance, a search on "French military victories" still produces a first result saying, "Your search - French military victories - did not match any documents." Upon clicking there, what appears is a mockup of a Google search page asking the question, "Did you mean: French military defeats?"
A 'Google Bomb' is simply the term come to describe the way in which online pranksters are trying to influence rankings on the search engine. And in this, Prez Bush is not alone. UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has also been ranking high on the Google index for a search on the term "liar". Even the 2004 Presidential candidate from the Democratic Party and Bush's main opponent, John F Kerry, was linked to a search on "waffles".
Google is keeping its new algorithm under wraps, but it is true that now on, a search on the term "miserable failure" will lead not to the official Web site of the US President, but instead to a 2003 BBC News article about the "miserable failure" search.
Google says the reason for diffusing the Bush bomb is the need to see legitimate commentary on its index in future. The other more important reason being cited is that people tend to perceive Google Bombs as Google's endorsement of particular views, which is not true.
In fact, Head of Google's Webspam Team, Matt Cutts, wrote in his blog that till now, Google Bombs have not been a very high priority for the company. But that over time, the company has been seeing more and more people assuming that these are Google's opinions, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Google-bombed queries. Cutts wrote that as this is not true, it seemed like it was worth trying to correct the misperception.
Meanwhile, author of the "miserable failure" Google Bomb, Washington-based Political Activist and Software Programmer, George Johnston, voiced the view that Google's decision is politically motivated, and that though he is unhappy with the tweak, he hasn't given up the fight just yet.
However, one Google Bomb diffused does not automatically translate into all Bombs having been diffused. There are some Google Bombs that continue to operate. For instance, a search on "French military victories" still produces a first result saying, "Your search - French military victories - did not match any documents." Upon clicking there, what appears is a mockup of a Google search page asking the question, "Did you mean: French military defeats?"
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suhaib
,chennai, on Feb 11, 2007 10:59 AM
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