New Campaign Tactic - Google Bombing

jeian writes "My Direct Democracy, a liberal group blog, is trying out a new campaign tactic — Google bombing. From the New York Times article: 'Searching Google for Peter King, the Republican congressman from Long Island, would bring up a link to a Newsday article headlined King Endorses Ethnic Profiling.' Google's policy has typically been to not intervene and let the algorithms work by themselves, but could this change if Google-bombing becomes a common tactic?"

Comments

Miserable Failure is the classic example

[xmas2003]

The classic example is a Google Search for miserable failure that returns the WhiteHouse.gov biography for George Bush. Not surpisingly, Michael Moore's page also comes up in the first page of results in the tit-for-tat. Read more about how "ugly" Democrats and Republicans are using Political Google Bombs at Wikipedia.

Re:Miserable Failure is the classic example

[jdunlevy]

Once a particular Google bomb gets noticed and talked about on the Web, that discussion of the Google bomb itself serves to help "the algorithms work by themselves": in the "miserable failure" example, the third and fourth results in that Google search are a BBC article about the "miserable failure" Google-bomb and the Wikipedia article about "Political Google bombs" -- the Google bomb still pushes its target to the top of search results, but related, following search results provide explanation and context.

Re:Miserable Failure is the classic example

[Jonas the Bold]

Yeah, but I'm not sure what these people are trying to do will work. Googlebombing works with obscure phrases, like Litigous Bastards or Miserable Failure, because people are unlikely to search for these or link with them in the first place. That way googlebombers can overcome all of the 'legit' uses of those phrases because there aren't very many of them. It's also mostly harmless because you can't accidentally find it.

By actaully using the candidates name, they have to overcome a whole lot more, all of the actual political blogs, news articles, campaign sites, etc. I don't think it will work at all.

Re:Miserable Failure is the classic example

[greg_barton]

Once a particular Google bomb gets noticed and talked about on the Web, that discussion of the Google bomb itself serves to help...

The first rule of the Google bomb: you must talk about the bomb.
The second rule of the Google bomb: you MUST talk about the BOMB.

Re:Miserable Failure is the classic example

[Ana10g]

I was with you right up until the point when you got all partisan on me. You totally lost me on that one. Instead of your statement, which read:

And the web really does have a whole ton of legitimate references to illegal and immoral acts by republican politicans.

It should read:
And the web really does have a whole ton of legitimate references to illegal and immoral acts by any politican.

There's absolutely no reason to pick on one side or the other, when the entire lot of politicians are completely corrupt, stupid, and need to be tossed out altogether in favor of honest people (if there are any left).

Re:Miserable Failure is the classic example

[Overly Critical Guy]

...which Democrats also pretend. Both sides claim to be singled out by the press, by the government, by wackos, etc.

I am so FRUSTRATED by people on either side claiming matter-of-factly that the OTHER guys are the immoral, illegal ones while ignoring the crimes of their own (there has been plenty by Democrats this year). You guys are essentially two battling religious factions, each with your holy books and saviors. Who's to say one holy book is any more right than the other?

Re:Miserable Failure is the classic example

[Overly Critical Guy]

Google isn't going to stop this if they're smart, because their job is to index the web, and the so-called google-bombers aren't gaming the system, they're changing the web.

Are you serious?

The job of a web search engine is to reflect the web by determining relevancy of content. What these folks are doing isn't "changing the web." They're gaming the system by lending influence to specific search results that doesn't accurately reflect the normal relevant results presented by Google's neutral algorithms. The behavior of a small group of extremists does not accurately reflect the web any more than one black person committing a crime represents all black people; in other words, the way they're changing the web is self-serving only to them and not the web and does not accurately reflect the web.

The guy specifically calls it "search engine optimization." Now, Slashdot is often posting stories about sleazy spammers and their SEO tactics, and this itself is essentially spamming. Regardless of which political affiliation you are (this is Slashdot, so I know which direction it leans), you should be getting your message out by rationally explaining it to the folks; not by using spamming and misdirection. Tactics like this only hurt politics. Next time someone mentions the "Republican propaganda machine," I'll just point them to this article as proof that they are selectively ignoring the sleazy tactics of members of their own party.

If these guys wanted to bring attention to certain information about opposing candidates, they should do what every rational person should do which is take out a print advertisement or a TV spot and get the message to the voters. This kind of stuff reminds me of people ripping down opposing candidate posters and putting up their own. Your red car analogy doesn't fly, unless you did something like go through the neighborhood and paint everybody's car red just to point out that one guy's car was red, rather than just hanging up flyers to let people know that the friggin' car is red.

Re:Miserable Failure is the classic example

[frank_adrian314159]

And the web really does have a whole ton of legitimate references to illegal and immoral acts by any politican.

Really? Any politician? I was right with you up until the time you got all cynical on us. This could have been avoided by you saying, "And the web really does have a whole ton of legitimate references to illegal and immoral acts by many politicans." This way, you make it clear you mean a lot, but not all politicians are corrupt, unless you really can prove that the Mayor of Bogusville, Montana has a web page that points out a ligitimate reference to illegal and immoral acts by him/her.

BTW, just as a question - suppose every Democratic congressperson had gotten a speeding ticket and every Republican had been convicted of bribery - would you still make the same argument you did above? There are degrees in corruption, just as there are shades of gray. Being the party in power, I have no doubt that the Republicans, especially with the advent of Tom DeLay's K Street Project, whose very purpose was to lock Democrats away from contributions (usually the source of most corruption trouble), have racked up more than their fair share of corrupt influences over the past ten or so years.

If you really think both parties are equally bad, your cynicism is very sad and is probably leading you towards doing nothing that will ever improve the situation. On the other hand, if you're just another partisan hack but for the other side, trying to say "Everyone does it, so everyone is equally bad!" so that you can rebut the OP with an aire of non-partisan superiority, I despise you and your hypocritical little charade.

It took this long?

[Kelson]

People have been google-bombing phrases like litigious bastards, miserable failure, french military victories, and so on for years. But these are all going about it backwards. If someone isn't looking for "litigious bastards," they're not going to find out you think it applies to SCO .

I'm amazed it's taken people (outside of black-hat SEO and comment spammers) this long to start with the keywords end-users are likely to start with -- in this case, the names of the candidates -- and aim them at a site expressing the desired POV, rather than the other way around.

Re:It took this long?

[smittyoneeach]

Does it pass the 'so, what?' test?
If the loyal opposition thinks that correlating "miserable failure" with Bush or anyone else somehow a) matters and b) has appreciable effect on the thought process of a voter, then this is a sad thing.
Not shilling for Bush here, but what a sophomoric use of talent!
How about some dispassionate critiques of the current world political situation, followed by some fresh, well-researched suggestions for where policy should go, and some non-establishment faces to implement the ideas on the ballot?
Please?

Re:It took this long?

[Jeffrey Baker]

This can have an appreciable effect. They are not linking terms like "laughable assclown", they are linking the candidate's OWN NAME to a news article about the candidate. Therefore people who are searching for information about the candidate are more likely to read the targeted article. It's simple and not at all misleading.

Example: Conrad Burns

Avoiding the Appearance of Bias

[Speare]

If Google adjusts their code to "rectify" a politically-oriented gaming of the system, then Google would appear to many people as politically biased. "You fixed it for Johnny Blue, but you didn't fix it for Sally Red, so you must be one of them blue-state LIBeral activist fanatic type companies!" "You tweaked Sally Red's ranking but left alone Johnny Blue's sort results, so you must be one of them red-state NEOnazi NEOcon corporate welfare hack jobs!"

Re:Avoiding the Appearance of Bias

[cultrhetor]

In our present climate, it's impossible to avoid the appearance of bias. The word has, sadly, lost almost all meaning because of partisan wankers who use it as the default defense against one media outlet or another. "Bias," like any other broadly interpreted term in political contexts, is determined by the ideological lens through which the finger-pointers whine. By doing nothing, Google will be viewed by some (the objects of the Google-bombing) as "biased," because it did nothing to protect what they see as fair discursive practice: even if the algorithm is neutral, the uses to which it is put are not, and to Ma & Pa Kettle (remember: as a demographic, people over 50 vote more than the rest of us), who don't understand the Internet, when looking for information about politics, the appearance of neutrality is more important than actual, underlying neutrality.

On the other hand, if Google were to adjust its algorithm, or begin quashing "Google bombs," the free-speech squad would go nuts, claiming that Google's actions are quashing the freedom of expression of online lynch-mobs. The EFF would go to court. Slashdot's YRO section would be packed with cyberlibertarians bitching about censorship and bringing up the legendary, mythical (and fictional) "neutrality" of the Internet.

What fun.

all's fair in love and war

[circletimessquare]

my gut feeling is let it be, and let the republicans do the same to democrats. welcome to politics. its nasty. always was, always will be

however, google in a very short time has come to inhabit a very important space in the media

it is largely unregulated in the usa now (not so in other countries), but it won't stay that way for long. too many powerful interests will have too many concerns about google and its power,and google will not survive unscathed

so i say: no regulation

but my brain tells me regulation of google is coming regardless

The irony

[MikeRT]

"Negative attack ads" are considered poisonous to democracy, but using spammer SEO tactics which are sleezy and destructive to Google's usefulness are not considered even worse. This is nothing less than an attempt to create a propagandistic effect with Google, whereas "negative attack ads" have to operate in the clear and open and are already covered by libel and slander laws. There are no laws against using a Google bomb to create a potentially false impression by the order in which things come up. You could have a guy who's say... obsessed with ending the War on Drugs, but a Google bomb could make him out to be some racist ass by bombing up all of the links that point to the one time he said "blacks are the most common drug dealer suspects, so profiling them before anyone else is the most effective strategy for DEA to use." Even if it's out of context, who will know now?

This is why I'm against all of the restrictions on campaigning. Instead I support 100% transparency on money. If you want to publish an ad, all you should have to do is say "I'm __INSERT__NAME__ and have the following (non-)affiliation with Candidate X." Just transparency so the public can decide.

Ironically, all the "campaign reform" advocates in the public have done is to support the things that incumbents enthusiastically support, like negative, privately-funded campaign ads that highligh what Group X doesn't like about a candidate, thus informing the public. And... if it's false, the candidate can always sue for libel.

This is why...

[ackthpt]

This is why I don't listen to radio or watch television during election season.

One might assume for the same reasons I might now stop surfing the net, but I won't for the simple reason I don't know anything about anybody or any proposition. I'll figure it all out the hours before I vote.

For those who trust the internet for information, you will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. You must be cautious.

this is not the candidate candidate you should be voting for...

Classic Google-bomb

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned one of my personal favorite google-bombs...
Google for Santorum (as in Rick Santorum) and you will see the funniest ever.

Re:Thought Google Had Responded

[LiquidCoooled]

They haven't changed the algorithm just because pranksters have hijacked a couple of phrases and generally made people more aware of google (by advertising "have you tried going to google and typing ...."), they have done it to stop link farms and spam from getting through.

Linking by keywords is a very important aspect of how google manages to return relevant results.
The text a person uses to actually link to a site gives weight to the use of the destination site, to this end when linking we should always try to give a relevant phrase.
Linking slashdot as this is less useful than something like Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters.

Google has a PAC

[funwithBSD]

Google has recently registered a Political Action Committee.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,1930008,00. html

So we will see how they react to it. The claim is that it is for advocating the free distribution of information so it will be interesting to see if they intervene and if they do, how they intervene.

Well, if you insist...

[shrubya]

you MUST talk about the BOMB

In AD 2006,
campaign was beginning.
Peter King: What happen ?
IT guy: Somebody set us up the Googlebomb.
Secretary: We get Newsday.
Peter King: What !

. . . So, have you had enough, or must I continue?