Long Live the Search Bomb!

With somewhat near discussions regarding Google Bombing..

[AndAgain]

Look like whatever algorithm that was implemented to prevent Google bombing, as expected due to the nature of search, isnt working worth a crap! :-)

[news.com.com...]

It shouldnt work...yeah protecting themselves against maniplulation is neccesary but Google bombing, in my opinion is part of the beauty of search.

The people casted a vote and how the people feel is reflected through various Google bombs...whether it is Bush, Colbert or Michael Moore...the people voted and the results are/were there.

The Colbert Bomb brings up an issue however...obviously whatever was implemented does not work...nor should it. Google Bombs are often times created by the community based on the understanding of how search works...what is wrong with that.

If someone thinks ole' George is "complete failure" then fine who cares...There were just as many people (almost) that believed Michael Moore was a failure to bomb his name as well.

Now the Colbert Bomb really brings up a topic I think Steven Colbert would find interesting....

Did Google even deploy any algorithm at all or was this manual removal of known Google Bombs to appease those that did not approve?

Furthermore like the title says "Long Live the Search Bomb"....keyword "Search" because just becuase it looks like Google removed the famous bombs doesnt mean that every other search engine doesnt reflect how the people really feel.

Anyway, thought it was kinda funny...

AndAgain..

[BradleyT]

I've always thought it was a manual removal since other bombs such as "coolest guy on the planet" and "french military victories" are still intact.

[tedster]

Google definitely stated they used an algorithmic approach.

When we're faced with a bad search result or a relevance problem, our first instinct is to look for an automatic way to solve the problem instead of trying to fix a particular search by hand. 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. That's what we did in this case, and the extra effort to find a good algorithm helps detect Googlebombs in many different languages. We wouldn't claim that this change handles every prank that someone has attempted.

[googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com...]

Looks like the Colbert Report "prank" does have more power than the algorithm tweak.

[whoisgregg]

the people voted and the results are/were there

Actually, the problem with Google Bombs is that "the people" didn't vote, a tiny minority stuffed the ballot box.

[kevinpate]

> stuffed the ballot box

aka the sanjaya effect :)

[maccas]

How hard is it really? If the page doesn't have said search words on the page then don't rank it.

[rainborick]

I'm surprised this has raised any fuss at all. The site's main page has the word 'living' on it (at least it did on Sunday), and apparently that's enough to let it pass the new Googlebomb fix.

[Crush]

Manual, scare tactic. The ones google likes....

Google, the master of smoke and mirrors.They publicly announce something to make people think it will not work anymore when it works well.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 8:25 pm (utc) on April 23, 2007]
[edit reason] edited off-topic comments [/edit]

[Robert Charlton]

For the record, in the past month or so, the White House did inadvertently put the word "failure" in the presidential bio (something to do with the Democratic failure to provide funding for the war), and, while this word was in place, the single-word failure Google Bomb was again working.

What was more interesting to me was that the bio continued not to to rank for [miserable failure], in spite of "failure" now being in the document and the many inbounds including "miserable failure" as a phrase.

I've noticed that some of my pages that used to rank for...

[keywordsynonym widget]

...in addition to...

[keyword widget]

...no longer rank for the keywordsynonym widget searches when "keywordsynonym" is not on the page, even though it is in inbound anchor text.

[edited by: Robert_Charlton at 9:02 pm (utc) on April 23, 2007]