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[israelnewsagency.com...]
The Israel News Agency in posting these Holocaust cartoons from Iran, has launched an SEO - Internet search engine optimization marketing contest to prevent Iran and Islam terrorist groups news Websites from reaching top positions in Google. This is the first time that a SEO contest was created for a political and humanitarian cause. And the INA has secured Olympic gold in its quest to outrank any and all Arab and Islam Websites as when one searches for the key words: "iran holocaust cartoons" the Israel News Agency has secured a Google first place ranking.
Is this a new era for seo?
I can not believe (yes I can really) that the Israeli News Agency would be so childish as to resort to racist tit-for-tat nonsense such as this.
Matt
I don't think there has ever been anything like this on this scale.
This awareness will lead to a lot more of this.
Google must be the world's most popular single source of information, it is inconceivable that it will not be manipulated for propoganda etc on a much greater scale.
This could be Google's biggest test to date.
Do they make hand corrections?
It was easy to sidestep the 'miserable failure' issue but it is easy to imagine much more sensitive and sticky issues just waiting to explode
Think about what governments did in WWI, WWII, and later, WRT information dissemination, and also disinformation dissemination.
When people are using the Web as a tool to run their daily lives, is it any wonder that governments would want to control that tool?
SEO gives them the opportunity to at least try.
Funny, someone was trying to convince me last year that SEO was on the way out. I was more of the opinion that SEO is simply changing. I don't see how it could possibly go away.
'Googlebombing' has attracted a lot of press in the UK over the last year, so it's hardly unusual that the technique might be adopted for less comical or less commerical purposes.
i hope Google doesn't become political
Many would say that this is some time to late.
If it works for Israel, it might open up a new form of propaganda machine.
Considering that kids today get their history or current events more from movies than newspapers or textbooks, and the few that do read a bit are usually googling for information, it is troubling to think how many will believe the Holocaust never happened.
You"ll probably think I"m exaggerating. But after researching several figures from documentaries I"ve seen, I was really shocked at how effective these sites are and how ineffective and nonexistent sites with the factually correct information are.
Not a source of truth.
Danish officials hired seo's (senior WebmasterWorld members in fact) last week to help deal with the fall out of cartoon story.
Which WebmasterWorld member be the head seo for the Republican party and which will be the head seo for the Democratic party in the 2008 election cycle? Resumes are being submitted and are being read - I've heard of 2 callbacks already.
Everything having anything to do with religion scares the c*** out of me.
I had no idea that so many people could possibly be so completely insane.
Why is that they chose that one word and nothing else? What about all the skewed results when searching for Latinos vs. Hispanics (big difference)...or as Clark pointed out, the word Holocaust, Indians (there is a difference between the Indians in Asia and the native peoples of the Americas such as the Shawnee, Sioux, etc). What about the results of searches related to upcoming elections or political leaders, religions, etc?
How many sites would be developed to mislead people searching for candidate X's idealologies or party Y's stance on sensitive topics?
I personally feel that although an explanation for the term “jew” and or any other term that has skewed results is valid especially if it deals with religion/ethnicity, it is entering shaky ground. Could they have been more diplomatic by creating a global explanation page to include a general (all encompassing) warning that results may be skewed and one should scrutinize the results?
[edited by: caveman at 6:29 pm (utc) on Feb. 19, 2006]
[edit reason] TOS #16, TOS #24 [/edit]
Google is a computer
A month ago nobody had ever heard of some obscure Danish newspaper and a few cartoons.
Now you can find 100's of thousands of copies of those same cartoons, plus a lot more that are much worse than anything that was ever published in print.
It is not only the USA that failed to realize that protesting too much can backfire.
This could avert the war, or possibly prevent the subsequent attack on Syria.
Rolling Stone reported, in their article "The Man who sold the war", that the Rendon Group uses a service called 'Livewire' to gather this sort of news, filter it, and deploy it around the globe.
it takes larger institutions a little while to catch on to new ways...
When control over every news outlet on the web is out of the question, seeking to dominate the SE's is the next logical step.
This obviously creates 'bad results': if I want to see the Holocaust cartoons, I want to be able to find them. This is a problem for the search engines.
INA does not attempt to hide the cartoons. INA does show the cartoons in a different light though - by displaying the holocaust cartoons on the same page with actual holocaust photographs, the cartoons become somewhat less "entertaining". Don't you think?
What better vehichle to apply economic might and strength of conviction to the war of ideas?
If every internet-using human had a $50 ppc budget and 10 page-1 SERP rankings to apply to his/her own espoused causes, you get
a)huge increases in political debate
b)far more people understanding the power of SEM/SEO
c)instant democratization of media distribution and consumption
-Shorebreak
