Slashdot Google Bombers?

muirhead asks: "As a proud new dad, I made a web site to share some baby photos. Having seen this article about Google Bombing, I gave it a go and posted comments to Slashdot, Newsforge, Kuro5hin and LinuxWorld. Some of the pages have a high enough PageRank to show up as links into my site. Now, there are quite a few phrases that I can tell folk to google, and know my site will show top of the list. My favourites are Ruby Orange and Mutley Sleeps, but of course, I want more. What other free sites and means do you know of that I can use to further increase the visibility of my website?"

Comments

That's It!

[Zach Garner]

That's it, I'm leaving slashing permanently! I can't believe this post made it here.

I'm adding "127.0.0.1 slashdot.org" to my /etc/hosts and never coming back.

Re:That's It!

[Snowspinner]

All three of those posts seem to be in the Ask Slashdot department.

I can only assume that the problem is not with Cliff so much as with the idiot /.ers who send worthless questions in.

You don't need google

[cloudless.net]

The best way to drive more traffic to your site is to make more interesting and original content.

So, to paraphrase...

[thecampbeln]

...you're looking to us to advise you on how to contribute to the watering down of Google's search results? The /. article you mentioned was exposing this practice as a bad thing, and yet you used the article as a how-to and are adding to the problem, and now are asking us how to help you add to the problem?

I've got 2 words for you, one guess on what they are...

Oh brother...

[jpsowin]

First, why is this on /. ?

Second, this is really lame. Why do you want to bomb the engines for your baby site? Who really is looking for it when they search with those keywords?

Third, why in the world is this on /. ?

Maybe this will finally break my slashdot addiction ;)

good dad

[falsification]

Time you spend being a good dad will have a more positive effect on the child than maximizing your web site hits.

Destroy the value of the search engine

[Slipped_Disk]

Alright, I REALLY hate the fact that I'm starting to sound like those 80 year olds sitting on the porch of the retirement home kvetching about how it used to be in "The Good Old Days", but...

I remember a better time - A long time ago - when the SPAM content of my inbox was GUARANTEED to be less than the archive of legit mail I have piled up. - Now, in the last 5 days I have 507 bits of spam, and 307 "archived" real mails sitting in my inbox awaiting (eventual) sorting into categories.

But, far more on topic (or off depending on your point of view), I remember back when search engines were useful because their content was guaranteed to be SOMEWHAT relevant to what you searched for.
Yes, I know they were never perfect. You could search for Reddywhip, innocently hoping to get a site about whipped cream and inadvertently wind up at reddywhip.org (not your intended destination I'm sure), but now with the clutter from blogs that don't have the common sense to have a NOINDEX in their META tags or an appropriate robots.txt file, the damn things are becoming saturated with CRAP! Add to this the result of "googlebombing" (admittedly a much smaller effect, but still something that gets noticed - obviously or it wouldnt be done) and things are really starting to get out of control.

Honestly, "nerds" should know better than to abuse search engines like this, and slashdot editors should know better than to post stories like this one - where the only "nerdly" bit is the link to the googlebombing article - itself already a story on slashdot (one with a great deal of merit in and of itself) - which will only serve to encourage more googlebombing and further degrade the quality of search results.

Moderators: Go ahead, I know it's offtopic, but this kind of stuff SERIOUSLY pisses me off. Nothing personal against Clif & his article selection, I happen to like some of his articles, but this one just serves to inflame an already bad situation.

The Second Most Impressive Slashdot Troll Ever

[0x0d0a]

All right, we should all clap and move on. This may be the single most impressive Slashdot Troll Story I've ever seen (the first, of course, being the hillarious take on the goat.cx link).

You successfully managed to get a story posted that:
* has nothing to do with nerds
* Is a meta-joke (the fact that you have a story up at all means that there is no question)
* contains obvious and highly visible links to a crappy personal webpage of pictures
* contains a direct plea to Slashdot to assist in spamming.
* was posted from an account that wasn't built up at all with legitimate postings, but had been used for just trolling.

So, I say we should clap momentarily and move on. I suspect that many trolls have tried over the years, but pulling the wool so completely over editors' eyes cannot possibly be easy.

Re:Why why why

[Hard_Code]

Yeah, WTF is up with that. "HEY COMPLETE STRANGER DO YOU WANT TO LOOK AT MY BABY?!" No you fucktard, so you managed to reproduce, what do you want, a congressional medal of honor? Sheesh. Baby pictures and embarrassing habits should be kept to yourself.

Where's the "-1: Offtopic" for stories?

[(trb001)]

Seriously, Taco, can we start modding stories? I would gladly give all 5 of my moderator points for the chance to z0t stories like this. It's amazing that someone managed to post a "-1: Offtopic", "-1: Troll" and "-1: Flamebait" story all in one.

--trb

Re:Does anyone else think it would be funny...

[Etyenne]

Before you hurt that guy, have you considered the posibility that this muirhead troll is impersonnating somebody else ? That the site linked belong to an innocent bystander ? That this email addy is not his, but someone else ?

Re:Why why why

[Wolfrider]

--Yah, forget about all this free advertising; Slashdot Google Bombers sounds like a good name to start a BAND!

reality check

[iamhassi]

i know this is -1 flamebait but I don't care: reality check, no one gives a damn about your baby. Your friends and family might, so register a simple domain and give them the url, but don't force the rest of us. Hundreds of thousands of babies are born daily, why is yours special? Because it's yours, so you think everyone should care? We don't, and the last thing I want is for your baby's site to pop-up as the first link on google everytime I do a search.

Here's why:

[Anonymous Coward]

CGP314: "One of the reasons I post to slashdot is to drive traffic to my site and to (hopefully) get feedback on my writing."

Here's a tip: If you drive me to read your material, you are NOT likely to garner a favorable/constructive review.

I'd be willing to read what you've done, but if you trick me into hitting your page, the best you can hope to get is my leaving without crapflooding your guest book. Someone looking for a book review finding your site would be a good thing, probably for all involved, but this is not a desirable reason to Google bomb. This guy wanted the phrase "ruby orange" to point to his page, based on a photo of the kid (named Ruby) having just had her foot dipped in orange paint. For something as simple as a baby photos page, it would probably be cheaper/easier to register a domain name, or even to have a couple hundred cards printed up with a URL. How about creating an emailing list and telling people where to sign up?

I've got a few pages on the web, and several of them are loaded with photos of my son, who will be a year old in three weeks. I haven't plastered his web site all over creation using a method that's just likely to draw tons of strangers in to view them. I tell people I see when I know they'd be interested, and I email or call people that I don't see. As many creeps are on the 'net, I sometimes consider putting passwords on the pages. If I had a daughter like this guy, I'd be nervous to even POST photos at all.

And what about the people who

• are in the market to buy some ruby blood oranges?
  
  
• or maybe ruby red grapefruit?
  
  
• would like a new, better recipe for a ruby orange cream torte?
  
  
• are trying to find Ruby and Orange throw pillows
  
  
• to match their lovely Ruby and Orange table covers?
  
  
• or even their quasi-antique ruby orange candy dish?
  
  
• can't remember where they bought that tasty fruit basket (was it Pepperige Farms? Knott's Berry Farm? Old McDonald's Farm?) last year?
  
  
• there will even be more people researching Kentucky women named Orange having daughters whom they name Ruby than people looking for this man's one child.
  
  

Google bombing may be a viable tactic in some cases, but this guy needs to find better ways to do what he's doing.