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Jan 29th, 2007, 8:12 pm
Google has announced that they have put an end to Googlebombs - for the moment. Previoulsy a search for "failure" would bring up George Bush's White House page, but as you can see, they've fixed it.
Specifically Google bombs are created by linking to some unused phrase that brings up irrelevant results when searching for the bombed phrase. The articles linked go into this in more depth.
It's been quite some time that the George Bush bomb has been on Google. At least a few years. If they claim they are against this kind of bombing, then WHY didn't they remove it? Basically their reason was this:
"Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission."
Ah, so it doesn't matter if their search engine insults the president. As long as it's a good engine, one or 2 insults don't matter... They also state here:
"The next natural question to ask is 'Why doesn't Google just edit these search results by hand?' To answer that, you need to know a little bit about how Google works. When we're faced with a bad search result or a relevance problem,"
So THAT explains it. Google thinks that if George Bush doesn't show up under the search term "failure", then it's irrelevant. It's great to see how apolitical Google is these days. When they finally get around to fixing it, all they really do is change their search algorithm that "helps detect Googlebombs in many different languages". Well, let me tell you something: a human is A LOT smarter than a computer, and no matter how efficient and fast it is, this is certainly not the end of Googlebombs.
So sit back and let Google show us their brand new anti-bombinb techniques (and likely some other insulting phrase). What a pity.
Specifically Google bombs are created by linking to some unused phrase that brings up irrelevant results when searching for the bombed phrase. The articles linked go into this in more depth.
It's been quite some time that the George Bush bomb has been on Google. At least a few years. If they claim they are against this kind of bombing, then WHY didn't they remove it? Basically their reason was this:
"Pranks like this may be distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our mission."
Ah, so it doesn't matter if their search engine insults the president. As long as it's a good engine, one or 2 insults don't matter... They also state here:
"The next natural question to ask is 'Why doesn't Google just edit these search results by hand?' To answer that, you need to know a little bit about how Google works. When we're faced with a bad search result or a relevance problem,"
So THAT explains it. Google thinks that if George Bush doesn't show up under the search term "failure", then it's irrelevant. It's great to see how apolitical Google is these days. When they finally get around to fixing it, all they really do is change their search algorithm that "helps detect Googlebombs in many different languages". Well, let me tell you something: a human is A LOT smarter than a computer, and no matter how efficient and fast it is, this is certainly not the end of Googlebombs.
So sit back and let Google show us their brand new anti-bombinb techniques (and likely some other insulting phrase). What a pity.
This blog entry was written by John Altenmueller, staff writer aka John A. It has received 2,817 views, 7 comments, and 28 linkbacks. 4 voters have rated this entry an average of 4.25 out of 5 stars. It was promoted to featured status Feb 3rd, 2007.
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All Recent Tags Comments (Newest First)
Stockmysite | Newbie Poster | Feb 8th, 2007
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I think it is funny, junk (true or not) can get on without a problem....Us little guys trying to get our sites seen fight fight fight....
Where is the justice.
D
Where is the justice.
D
cjon | Newbie Poster | Feb 6th, 2007
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Truth hurts.
MattEvans | Posting Shark | Feb 4th, 2007
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> It was 'miserable failure' rather than just 'failure' on its own as a search term that did the George Bush thing I think.
It was actually both. But Google fixed 'em. Guaranteed until the next bug, like I always say.
I say that was more of a feature than a bug.
slurpee55 | Newbie Poster | Feb 3rd, 2007
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if someone made a bomb that led from the search "error-prone to www.google.com, would they fix it more quickly, do you think?
John A | Vampire Moderator | Jan 30th, 2007
bclarkea | Newbie Poster | Jan 30th, 2007
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It will be interesting to see how effective their GoogleBomb detection will be - after all, GoogleBombing (in Google's eyes) looks very similar to what a viral marketing campaign will product - tons of links in a very small amount of time with similar anchor text.
Greg
Greg
happygeek | He's The Daddy | Jan 30th, 2007
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It was 'miserable failure' rather than just 'failure' on its own as a search term that did the George Bush thing I think.
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It was actually both. But Google fixed 'em. Guaranteed until the next bug, like I always say.