RSSGoogle Disarms 'Googlebombs'
By Nate Mook | Published January 26, 2007, 2:28 PM
Google has made what it calls a "pretty small" change to the way it indexes Web sites in order to prevent a prank often called "Googlebombing" in which many people link the same word to specific Web site in order to raise it to the top of search results.
Notable Googlebombs, or linkbombs, include the word "failure" resulting in a link to U.S. President George W. Bush's Web site, as well as associating the word "talentless hack" with Adam Mathes. In turn, Google says it has improved the way it analyzes the link structure of the Web.
"Now we will typically return commentary, discussions, and articles about the Googlebombs instead," explained Google engineer Matt Cuts in a blog post. "Over time, we've seen more people assume that they are Google's opinion, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Googlebombed queries. That's not true, and it seemed like it was worth trying to correct that misperception."
Instead of correcting the results by hand, which was possible as Cuts said there are under 100 well-known Googlebombs, Google developed an algorithm to address the problem. "Algorithms are great because they scale well: computers can process lots of data very fast, and robust algorithms often work well in many different languages."
Searching for the word "failure" on Google no longer links first to the White House, although "utter failure" still displays an editorial on President Bush as the top result.
Secret algorithm for sniping a google bomb:
1. Search "google bomb list" and pay attention only to high-traffic lists from most reputable linkers.
2. Parse the data. If term is on the list, demote it - it's a google bomb.
3. End of secret algorithm.
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George Bush, Reggie Bush, both disappointments. At least George didn't taunt the Bears defense.
I though GW Bush also came up if you Google "douchebag"
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No, douchebag comes up when you type in Dave or was that d***head that comes up?
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Searching for "did nothing to stop 9/11" returns Bill Clinton.
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Just goes to show how inaccurate internet search rankings are for useful information.
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i remember "poodle" got Tony Blair's homepage iirc
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What? Not 'Lap dog'?
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I always thought it was "Miserable Failure" that brought up facts regarding George W. Bush.
http://www.google.com/search?q=miserable%20failure
Either way, the quick search on Google still gets across, these opinions from many bloggers.
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haha, nice. Although Bush really is a failure so it seems a shame to keep that truthful result from being #1 on google... :(
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I've got one word for you c4.....J A C K A S S.
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Although I do agree with you Natrunner, no need to swear
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that wasn't a swearword..... Haven't you eversee the old Bug's Bunny or Looney Toon cartoons?
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