will googlebombing ruin google? March 25, 2002 12:03 PM Subscribe
Slate wonders if Googlebombing will ruin the poor little seach engine that could. Cap'n Haughey gets a meniton for the Critical IP imbroglio. There's some weird editing botch at the end that I imagine will get ironed out later.
Note that the article is by John Hiler from Corante's Microcontent News, which is a site worth visiting daily.
posted by maudlin at 1:57 PM on March 25, 2002
posted by maudlin at 1:57 PM on March 25, 2002
I don't think this will become a problem for a long time, if ever. There are few web sites with enough power(represented by readership+loyalty) to pull one of these off and make it stick. The "talentless hack one"(sorry, but it's just funny) is probably still around mainly out of sheer momentum. In fact, if these start to get common, I bet people will start getting bored with them.
And speaking of editing botches: speak English, damnit! This article looks like German and practically reads like Japanese. Every third word is capitalized, and it seems to be because the author defined certain words as "proper terms" for auto-capitalization, or something. Hence: "Web/log(s)" is capitalized, but "blog" is not. The repetitious wording of the entire article didn't help the matter.
posted by Su at 2:07 PM on March 25, 2002
And speaking of editing botches: speak English, damnit! This article looks like German and practically reads like Japanese. Every third word is capitalized, and it seems to be because the author defined certain words as "proper terms" for auto-capitalization, or something. Hence: "Web/log(s)" is capitalized, but "blog" is not. The repetitious wording of the entire article didn't help the matter.
posted by Su at 2:07 PM on March 25, 2002
A number of style guides mandate that "Web" be capitalized. See, for instance, this arbitrarily selected Times story. I find it somewhat grating, but it's self-consistant (and it makes sense, given that "web" is short for "World Wide Web", which should be capitalized).
posted by snarkout at 2:17 PM on March 25, 2002
posted by snarkout at 2:17 PM on March 25, 2002
I (tongue-in cheek) rambled-ranted about this very subject (or more properly about the possibility of 'money-bombs') a few weeks ago on my wee blogly thing, which I duplicate here for your reading pleasure, sans hyperlinks...
"...is it only a matter of time until Hollywood starts regularly hiring hundreds of blogtemps to fire up new weblogs, post furiously and praise to the skies the latest piece of crap opus by Jerry Bruckheimer or some other purveyor of soul-destroying cinematic garbage, interlink to themselves and a few 'a-listers', start offering large cash incentives to Kottke and Rageboy and other high-traffic blognodes to link back to the rent-a-bloggers, and watch the Google rank for their new Product soar? Or record companies to promote their wares? Or governments? Are recent, highly-successful experiments in spiking the GooglePunch like the recent one by Matt Haughey the tip of the iceberg? How soon before big business catches on, before the Office of Strategic Mind Control realizes the subtle power (if they haven't already) of the interconnectedness of blogs and begins working blogspace like the infopimps they strive to be? Before this 'place', too, becomes branded and corporatized? (Forget the stone-knives-and-bearskins, bandwidth-wasting crudity of banner ads - savvy marketers will work the medium, pimp the actual hyperlinks, and tickle Google till it quivers, moans, and page-ranks, gratefully. Linkwhoring could become a serious business. Perhaps we could form a mafia, a Blogga Nostra, and skim a little of that corporate cream off the top, broker linkage deals, extort flame-protection money.)
Of course it may become moot, if Google fine-tunes their page ranking system for blogs. For now, though, please hold my hand. I'm a little scared."
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:44 PM on March 25, 2002
"...is it only a matter of time until Hollywood starts regularly hiring hundreds of blogtemps to fire up new weblogs, post furiously and praise to the skies the latest piece of crap opus by Jerry Bruckheimer or some other purveyor of soul-destroying cinematic garbage, interlink to themselves and a few 'a-listers', start offering large cash incentives to Kottke and Rageboy and other high-traffic blognodes to link back to the rent-a-bloggers, and watch the Google rank for their new Product soar? Or record companies to promote their wares? Or governments? Are recent, highly-successful experiments in spiking the GooglePunch like the recent one by Matt Haughey the tip of the iceberg? How soon before big business catches on, before the Office of Strategic Mind Control realizes the subtle power (if they haven't already) of the interconnectedness of blogs and begins working blogspace like the infopimps they strive to be? Before this 'place', too, becomes branded and corporatized? (Forget the stone-knives-and-bearskins, bandwidth-wasting crudity of banner ads - savvy marketers will work the medium, pimp the actual hyperlinks, and tickle Google till it quivers, moans, and page-ranks, gratefully. Linkwhoring could become a serious business. Perhaps we could form a mafia, a Blogga Nostra, and skim a little of that corporate cream off the top, broker linkage deals, extort flame-protection money.)
Of course it may become moot, if Google fine-tunes their page ranking system for blogs. For now, though, please hold my hand. I'm a little scared."
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:44 PM on March 25, 2002
A number of style guides mandate that "Web" be capitalized. ... I find it somewhat grating, but it's self-consistant (and it makes sense, given that "web" is short for "World Wide Web", which should be capitalized).
It's also true, though, that many major websites (including Yahoo) do not capitalize "web", and that many other sites have followed that lead. While almost all print publications capitalize it ("Web") -- and keep it capitalized when republishing print articles online -- it's often not capitalized in web copy.
(And of course it's just a convention, anyway.)
An aside: I'm glad to see that Hiler notes that the Critical IP "Google Bomb" had already faded after 4 weeks (though in fact it took less than 3) -- he hadn't noticed in his first few articles on the subject, as I noted here....
posted by mattpfeff at 4:17 PM on March 25, 2002
It's also true, though, that many major websites (including Yahoo) do not capitalize "web", and that many other sites have followed that lead. While almost all print publications capitalize it ("Web") -- and keep it capitalized when republishing print articles online -- it's often not capitalized in web copy.
(And of course it's just a convention, anyway.)
An aside: I'm glad to see that Hiler notes that the Critical IP "Google Bomb" had already faded after 4 weeks (though in fact it took less than 3) -- he hadn't noticed in his first few articles on the subject, as I noted here....
posted by mattpfeff at 4:17 PM on March 25, 2002
It all just begs the question: what's the next generation of search engine? Otherwise, if this one's ok it will stick around.
posted by walrus at 5:38 PM on March 25, 2002
posted by walrus at 5:38 PM on March 25, 2002
mattpfeff - you don't have to call me "hiler"... you can just call me "john".
hmm... i've been obsessively checking the status of the critical ip google bomb over the past month. i tried to talk through that in my articles:
http://www.google.com/search?q=critical+IP
working with slate was really interesting. one thing that may not be clear is that articles are entirely rewritten by the editorial staff. i had no control over word choice, let alone style issues like capitalization.
in any case, thanks for the props on microcontent news! it soaks up a lot of time, but it's a lot of fun. i just finished up a series on scientology and google, covering the whole dmca issue. so far, i've only gotten a few emails from random scientologists - no letters (yet) from the Church itself!
posted by kaname at 5:53 PM on March 25, 2002
hmm... i've been obsessively checking the status of the critical ip google bomb over the past month. i tried to talk through that in my articles:
google loves blogs: "Case in point: Matt's site has fallen from #1 to #46 in Google searches for Critical IP (as of 2/26/02)."interestingly, using Critical IP as an example in these articles has helped the meme spread! if you do a search for "critical ip" now, matt's site is back to #2:
google time bomb: "Blogging a link (AKA link-blogging) as a Google Bomb can provide a powerful short term boost in Google rank... but as we saw last week with the Critical IP example, the Google Bomb drops in power over time. (The Google Bomb raced to the #1 search position for "Critical IP" within two days... but two weeks later, it was already down to #46, and falling.) "
http://www.google.com/search?q=critical+IP
working with slate was really interesting. one thing that may not be clear is that articles are entirely rewritten by the editorial staff. i had no control over word choice, let alone style issues like capitalization.
in any case, thanks for the props on microcontent news! it soaks up a lot of time, but it's a lot of fun. i just finished up a series on scientology and google, covering the whole dmca issue. so far, i've only gotten a few emails from random scientologists - no letters (yet) from the Church itself!
posted by kaname at 5:53 PM on March 25, 2002
i've been obsessively checking the status of the critical ip google bomb over the past month. i tried to talk through that in my articles:
Heh. My bad -- I missed those. D'oh.
if you do a search for "critical ip" now, matt's site is back to #2: http://www.google.com/search?q=critical+IP
Weird -- when I searched just now, I didn't see it in the top 40 (and then stopped looking). This Microcontent News article was No. 7, though.
working with slate was really interesting.
Them editing for style is standard -- any publication will do that -- but I'm surprised that they would rewrite as extensively as it sounds. From what I've read of Microcontent News, I doubt it was completely necessary, unless they were looking for a specific angle. But I guess if they agree to run your byline, you're not gonna complain too much....
posted by mattpfeff at 8:27 PM on March 25, 2002
Heh. My bad -- I missed those. D'oh.
if you do a search for "critical ip" now, matt's site is back to #2: http://www.google.com/search?q=critical+IP
Weird -- when I searched just now, I didn't see it in the top 40 (and then stopped looking). This Microcontent News article was No. 7, though.
working with slate was really interesting.
Them editing for style is standard -- any publication will do that -- but I'm surprised that they would rewrite as extensively as it sounds. From what I've read of Microcontent News, I doubt it was completely necessary, unless they were looking for a specific angle. But I guess if they agree to run your byline, you're not gonna complain too much....
posted by mattpfeff at 8:27 PM on March 25, 2002
weird?! i'm looking at a google search for "critical ip" (from this afternoon) which has matt's site as #2, my article as #6, and metatalk as #8.
but when i run a new google search for "critical ip", matt's site and the metatalk thread aren't anywhere to be seen.
as for editing: my understanding is that all the major publications will heavily edit articles by freelancers, unless you're a "name" journalist (malcolm gladwell, andrew sullivan, etc.).
basically, freelancers do the reporting, and editors do the actual writing.
posted by kaname at 9:11 PM on March 25, 2002
but when i run a new google search for "critical ip", matt's site and the metatalk thread aren't anywhere to be seen.
as for editing: my understanding is that all the major publications will heavily edit articles by freelancers, unless you're a "name" journalist (malcolm gladwell, andrew sullivan, etc.).
basically, freelancers do the reporting, and editors do the actual writing.
posted by kaname at 9:11 PM on March 25, 2002
as for editing: my understanding is that all the major publications will heavily edit articles by freelancers, unless you're a "name" journalist (malcolm gladwell, andrew sullivan, etc.).
Even minor publications will do that. A friend of mine had a series several months in a row in an Apple II magazine called inCider/A+ (they used to be two different magazines; I can't remember if it was before or after they merged and if it was before, which magazine it was in). He complained about being heavily rewritten in every issue, to the extent that they introduced inaccuracies and made him look like he didn't know what he was talking about. They paid him well, though, and they spelled his name right, so he didn't complain that much.
posted by kindall at 12:21 AM on March 26, 2002
Even minor publications will do that. A friend of mine had a series several months in a row in an Apple II magazine called inCider/A+ (they used to be two different magazines; I can't remember if it was before or after they merged and if it was before, which magazine it was in). He complained about being heavily rewritten in every issue, to the extent that they introduced inaccuracies and made him look like he didn't know what he was talking about. They paid him well, though, and they spelled his name right, so he didn't complain that much.
posted by kindall at 12:21 AM on March 26, 2002
re: rewriting -- it really does depend on the publication. Most monthly magazines no doubt will edit heavily, but weeklies and most newspapers probably dedicate more of their resources to finding more stories than to perfecting ones they already have. Major publications, of course, are more likely to have the resources to do both. I imagine most websites tend more toward the daily newspaper side of the spectrum, but since Slate focuses more on commentary and analysis than breaking news, it makes sense that they would be an exception.
posted by mattpfeff at 8:53 AM on March 26, 2002
posted by mattpfeff at 8:53 AM on March 26, 2002
a freelancer friend tells me that you can even be sued for "writing" something that was edited in. so those inaccuracies can be a real drag all around!
posted by kaname at 8:57 AM on March 26, 2002
posted by kaname at 8:57 AM on March 26, 2002
You are not logged in, either login or create an account to post comments
Metafilter: We rite gud!
posted by Skot at 1:18 PM on March 25, 2002