Why do people engage in Google-bombing?

May 15, 2002 9:47 AM

Why do people feel so thoroughly justified about engaging in Google bombing?

Why is your opinion about something so important as to justify monkeywrenching the best search engine (if not the best thing) on the net? Why is your self-righteous indignation more important that leaving well enough alone?

If it is so important to you, why don't you build something equivalent with the specific aim of "educating the people" and stop piggybacking off of Google?

I am interested in Matt's opinion on this, since he's one of the ones that set this whole thing off.
posted by Irontom to general weblog-related at 9:47 AM (76 comments total)

I think it's despicable, as despicable as abusing someone's trust; or biting the hand that feeds you. In a perverse way it might help them perfect their techniques but it may also lead them to re-examine their sympathy for the blogging world and its principles.

Go play these tricks on some other search machine!
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:01 AM on May 15, 2002

Tom, typically I find it more appropriate if I want someone's opinion to email him, instead of slyly cutting him in his own forum, which is one of the best forums (if not the best) on the net.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 10:07 AM on May 15, 2002

As previously discussed, this seems to be getting harder to do. I think Googlebombing will go out of vogue pretty quickly as Google's engineers do a better job of programming it out of feasibility.
posted by me3dia at 10:10 AM on May 15, 2002

I don't really see Google bombing as exploiting some weakness in Google's algorithm. Rather, it's working with the link-voting mechanism that is at the heart of Google's superiority as a search engine.

If you can enough people to point to your page for a given term, then your page is the best result for that term.
posted by timeistight at 10:15 AM on May 15, 2002

Should have been: "If you can get enough people . . .".
posted by timeistight at 10:16 AM on May 15, 2002

1. I have mailed Matt in the past, seeking his opinion on other, unrelated matters.
2. He's a busy guy, and neither acknowledged my inquiry nor replied to it. (No heartburn there, his time is limited with many demands on it, and he doesn't have to talk to me if he doesn't want to.)
3. He has publicly advocated, in this forum, a course of action that I find reprehensible. (please note that I just talked about a course of action that I disagree with - I did not generalize that to the man in question)
4. In light of this, how else can I go about asking my question (to him and to others who agree with him)?

I did not mean to "slyly cut" him - I wanted to make my opinions known on this subject and get some sort of answers and/or discussion on this subject.

* On preview *

timeistight - that answer is disingenuous at best. The google algorithms do (apparently) rely on link popularity, but they were (apparently) not designed with coordinated campaigns in mind. These coordinated campaigns are in fact an attempt to take advantage of an unintended consequence of how they do business.
posted by Irontom at 10:28 AM on May 15, 2002

Irontom: I don't get Matt's connection to this, apart from one entirely exceptional case which he's often explained and was amply debated. I thought your post was about google bombing in general. If, as it seems, you merely want to know Matt's opinion...then Google search and you shall find it, more than one.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:35 AM on May 15, 2002

Unless you own hundreds of domain names, the only way to coordinate a Google bomb is to convince hundreds of people of the righteousness of your position. If you can do that, then your page is a legitimate result for anyone searching for the word or phrase in question.

And if you do own hundreds of domain names, your opinions are already going to be over-represented on any search engine.
posted by timeistight at 10:41 AM on May 15, 2002

Irontom asks a worthwhile question. Some website publishers seem to think they can Google bomb whatever they like. Some drivers also like doing 60 mph in residential areas. It's fair to ask, among a community of web publishers, if we shouldn't think about this.

Mathowie seems to have been thinking about it -- and questioning the responsibility involved. Obviously, anyone with a website is -- and should be -- free to link to anything they want, with any text they want. But that doesn't mean it's a good idea; you'd hope people would use link text they sincerely think truly describes the sites they link to.

That is, if you actually, really do agree with a Google bomb, then there's no reason not to participate. But if you do it just because some putative "A-Lister" started it, well, your parents should take their car keys back.
posted by mattpfeff at 10:46 AM on May 15, 2002

I think googlebombing is an interesting concept: kinda like a meme-boycott, or something, in that the more people participate in it, the more effective it will be. It's next-gen grassroots protest. 20 years from now, it'll be interesting to maybe go back and look at archives to see what issues netizens felt were controversial. Yes, googlebombs may have historical value! I don't think that's too much of a stretch.

Irontom's point about Google's resources being misued is a valid one, however. Maybe they could implement a seperate listing for bombs. For real! Some kind of algorithm could sniff out googlebomb links, and they'd be listed in a seperate directory where users could go to find out what people think is sketchy and what's not. Something fishy about your domain registrar? Check greivances.google.com to see what the general consensus is!


posted by andnbsp at 10:55 AM on May 15, 2002

your parents should take their car keys back

"No blogging for a month for you, young man. Mrs. Schwartz next door saw you Google bombing with those hoodlum, A-list friends of yours."
posted by timeistight at 10:57 AM on May 15, 2002

Well, once again, it's time for me to eat crow. I have never really paid any attention to MetaTalk before today, and I did not read the Feb 11 thread "Google bombing at it's finest" until Miguel posted above.

I will retract any and all aspersions I cast at Matt (others are NOT absolved). As I said above, it was the action I thought was reprehensible, not Matt. As usual, he seems to me to be a stand up guy, albeit one that was pissed off and didn't think about consequences of rash action.

However, I disagree entirely with mattpfeff - I think that even if you do agree with a Google bomb, you should just leave things alone. Or, if you simply cannot, build some other mechanism to get the word out. Do not presume to think that you know that I want to know about Critical IP (or the Church of Scientology, or the LAPD, or whatever cause dujour has riled the mighty bloggers) when I do a Google search.

Because for me, that is what all of this boils down to. The very human impulse to force your opinion down my throat, so that way I will know your "truth" as "the truth".
posted by Irontom at 11:03 AM on May 15, 2002

Irontom: If you don't want to know about Critical IP, why type "Critical IP" into Google? If you didn't do that, you wouldn't see the Google bomb.

If you are searching for "Critical IP," then Matt's rant is as legitimate a result as anything else.


posted by timeistight at 11:10 AM on May 15, 2002

even if you do agree with a Google bomb, you should just leave things alone. Or, if you simply cannot, build some other mechanism to get the word out. Do not presume to think that you know that I want to know about Critical IP (or the Church of Scientology, or the LAPD, or whatever cause dujour has riled the mighty bloggers) when I do a Google search.

That's a fair concern -- but it's one for Google, not for a web publisher. It's up to Google to decide what weight to give us wacky, independent-thinker types and our wild and zany linking. But if I, in good conscience, agree with someone else that a given website is the best place to go for information (or whatever) implied by a given phrase, why shouldn't I link to that site using that link text?

I'm not trying to defend Google bombing as a practice; I'm just trying to say there's nothing inherently wrong with multiple people linking to the same website using the same link text. In principle, the occurrence of such a thing contains useful information for a web searcher.

But I do agree that deliberately manipulating that aspect of Google's search would be irresponsible.
posted by mattpfeff at 11:30 AM on May 15, 2002

We have a Critical IP Sucks GoogleBomb and a Verisign Sucks GoogleBomb. What would be really interesting is a GoogleBombing Sucks Googlebomb. I have no idea where it would point, I just like the irony and the meta-ness of it all.

I don't participate in Googlebombing. There's something in-groupish, or even vigillante tactic, about it that I don't care for. That's not it exactly but I can't quite define my dislike at the present time.
posted by iconomy at 11:34 AM on May 15, 2002

Google doesn't reflect "balance" or a state of equilibrium. Google provides rankings. There is no "fair" or "natural state" on Google. (And don't get me started on truth. Remember the analysis of medical information sites and their inaccuracies?)

The internet isn't some pristine island being cluttered and degraded by websites and their opinions. That's all the internet is.

With regards to blogs specifically, aren't warblogs in themselves de facto googlebombs? And if all bloggers weren't either overtly or implicitly interested in influencing Google, wouldn't a meta tag do the trick to eliminate that quandry?

I'm sure a position opposed to Google-bombing can be well made, based on a set of ethics that opposes hacking, intervention, and all other manifestations of unseemly and unslightly egotism and opinion-forcing. Someone should write that up and propagate it -- without indignation, of course.
posted by RJ Reynolds at 11:53 AM on May 15, 2002

i suppose you could ask the pro-life protestors outside of an abortion clinic why it is they feel they must harass the people walking inside of the clinic. it's a form of protest and activism that is (thus far) pretty legal. i think the difficulty in making google bombing illegal will prompt google to accidentally do the right thing, which is to devise a new match-weighting algorithm that sidesteps what we think of as google bombs today.
posted by moz at 11:57 AM on May 15, 2002

Maybe they could implement a seperate listing for bombs.

Googlebombs are essentially free advertising for ideas, rather than products. They could also be thought of as a form of PR: the concept behind sending out a press release is to get journalists to write about a product or service, rather than paying for an ad. It's been shown that people are three times more likely to believe what they read in a newspaper article about an item than what they read in an advertisement for the same item. The same is true of a Google search return -- the links Google turns up are seen as far more trustworthy than the "sponsored links," which everybody recognizes as advertising.

If they were to create a separate page for googlebombs or set them apart from normal links, VeriSign, X10 and a zillion other spammers and spam-like entities would use Googlebombing as a tool to grab eyes -- call it GoogleAdBombing. (They're probably plotting such a tactic right now, as we speak.) The effect would be two-fold: The grassroots effect of Googlebombs would diminish as the technique is exploited, and all the earnest Googlebombs would quickly fall in the rankings behind the GoogleAdBombs.

posted by me3dia at 12:07 PM on May 15, 2002

They're probably plotting such a tactic right now

The Church of Scientology has been doing just that for a while now.
posted by rodii at 12:22 PM on May 15, 2002

Good point. So I'm right, and it's only a matter of time till some really slimy types start doing it, too.
posted by me3dia at 12:41 PM on May 15, 2002

I think there's a difference between googlebombing some nonsensical phrase ("talentless hack" springs to mind) that very few people who are not actually looking for will run across and purposely trying to upset actual search results ("critical IP" "verisign" "scientology" etc)

Like iconomy, I find the practice distasteful and certainly do not participate in it.
posted by palegirl at 12:53 PM on May 15, 2002

The very human impulse to force your opinion down my throat, so that way I will know your "truth" as "the truth".

Irontom: this is probably the root of all evil. Conviction is frightening enough as it is. Never mind the desire to forcefully persuade - convict more likely - others. And the reason it's dangerous is that it's sometimes right but, even when it's wrong, it works.

I have never understood how convincing convinced people are[Godwin's law]but they are. Specially to those who didn't have an opinion in the first place - for the right reasons.

If someone I respected here at MetaFilter suddenly proposed that we all Googlebomb Google itself because of some offense I was unaware of, I'd probably be tempted to contribute. So you're quite right; although I agree with you. ;)
posted by MiguelCardoso at 1:10 PM on May 15, 2002

If I started it, it was because I was awaken on an early morning to get phone spammed from a company I didn't need, nor would I ever do business with. They were breaking dotster's WHOIS terms of service, and I was pissed about that too. I wasn't thinking when I did it, and I wanted to lash out, so I did.

If you look at every post I've made about this, I've preached responsibility and restraint. I know I sort of opened the flooodgates, and the googlebombs that followed seemed to lose sight of any responsibility.

You can't decry the practice outright, it's one of the only ways right now to gain attention for an opposing point of view. It is making Google less useful for users, but I think it's a lot like people protesting Verisign by marching in the streets, while you sit in your car on a side street and complain about them causing you to be late to work.

It's a moot point afterall, as I am almost 100% positive Google has already routed around any future google bombs.
posted by mathowie at 1:32 PM on May 15, 2002

Wow. Matt double posted. I'm in shock. He must really mean it.
posted by me3dia at 1:35 PM on May 15, 2002

i think getting upset over a googlebombing is a waste of energy. or did all the homeless find homes yet?
posted by jcterminal at 1:50 PM on May 15, 2002

I don't agree that google bombing is wrong--I added my links to the recent verisign googlebomb.

it's an organized response. if every single weblogger in the world posted a note about what happened to hoopla, it wouldn't register on google, because all of the words would be different, even though the idea would be the same.

as has been pointed out, it takes a large number of people to successfully create a google search result--and so googlebombs are likely to be promulgated by organized communities, charismatic individuals, or groups of people who are in agreement on something.

here's why it doesn't bother me or strike me as unethical: the other links are all right there. the most successful googlebomb will not erase the other links--even if the first link goes to a weblog entry that describes a company's unethical business practices, the company's link will presumably be right underneath.

it makes available a perspective that a large number of people--for whatever reason--felt strongly enough to want to publicize. other, more favorable, links are available on the same page. the addition of the googlebomb is just one data point--and it is information that an interested party would not otherwise have access to. if the weblog entry itself is not convincing, the searcher will instantly discount it and move to information that seems more credible.

the end result of a successful googlebomb is that the person doing the search has all of the information they need to make an informed decision.

if a person or organization managed to hijack the top 10 or 20 search results, that would be a different matter: there, alternate viewpoints would actually be obfuscated. but assuming that a successful googlebomb adds one link to all of the rest, I simply don't see it as violating the essential usefulness of the search engine.
posted by rebeccablood at 2:02 PM on May 15, 2002

If it is so important to you, why don't you build something equivalent with the specific aim of "educating the people"

Umm, that's what googlebombing is. It's adding a relevant link to the list of links Google returns. I named my single web page after a term that I wanted to "own", without asking anyone to link to it by that name, or asking for a "bomb", and I am the first result on that term. For several terms, actually. Is that somehow unethical, too?

To phrase it better: If you're looking for a relevant result on the search term "verisign", how is Dean's page not relevant? It seems ludicrous to say that Matt, or Dean, or me, or anyone else is indulging in an " impulse to force your opinion down my throat, so that way I will know your "truth" as "the truth"." any more than Verisign is by being on the other side of a lot of Verisign links.

Perhaps you misunderstand how PageRank works.
posted by anildash at 2:12 PM on May 15, 2002

irontom: [google algorithms] were (apparently) not designed with coordinated campaigns in mind.

how do you characterize it when a company spends money on marketing and branding to increase marketshare to an extent such that their brandname is overwhelmingly associated with the particular product they sell? (they do call it a marketing campaign, no? and they are coordinated, no?)

one illustrative example, i'm sure there are others.
posted by juv3nal at 2:21 PM on May 15, 2002

the person doing the search has all of the information they need to make an informed decision.

You are making needless assumptions about why people use search engines. In most case, someone Googling for 'verisign' is simply trying to find the verisign website - perhaps to update their domain, do a whois, or whatever. They are not looking for opinions on verisign.

To condone this is to condone that all websites owned by vegetarians (I am sure there are many) create anti-meat Google bombs. To me this is a hijacking of information retrieval systems not too far removed from scrawling opinions on library index cards.

I also believe you should not create something that you cannot control. I would not be surprised that many weblogs out there posted the verisign link because all their friends were doing it, aligning themselves with faddishness not sentiment. In this case, with verisign, who cares? But, I can see how this could spin out of control in the way that age-old internet chain letters do.

When and if (I know this is hypothetical and unlikely) verisign reforms its practices, will you then take responsibility for the removal of the old anti-verisign links from each weblog?


posted by vacapinta at 2:23 PM on May 15, 2002

That's a fair concern -- but it's one for Google, not for a web publisher. It's up to Google to decide what weight to give us wacky, independent-thinker types and our wild and zany linking.

Perhaps Google is giving too much weight to the bloggers, but I don't think that's something that needs to be pointed out to them. It would be like having an ATM on your street corner, automatically spitting out a couple of 20s every time you walked by. Sure, it's a malfunction, but why tell the bank their machine is broken?

I think the fact that Google seems to give undue emphasis on a handful of sites isn't something that should be frittered away.

And I've already weighed in on how I feel about "me, too" blogging.
posted by crunchland at 2:28 PM on May 15, 2002

Perhaps you misunderstand how PageRank works.

This is not about technology. Its about using your influence in the weblogging community responsibly.
posted by vacapinta at 2:34 PM on May 15, 2002

When and if (I know this is hypothetical and unlikely) verisign reforms its practices, will you then take responsibility for the removal of the old anti-verisign links from each weblog?

if company a knows that company b has a superior product do they take responsibility for retracting all their advertising claiming that their own product is superior?

posted by juv3nal at 2:40 PM on May 15, 2002

juv3nal: I'm not sure what your point is but if you are comparing google-bombing to advertising, then we are in agreement.

Google is a valuable resource to me. I dont want to see your graffiti there anymore than I want to see "emails about products or services that may be valuable to you" in my inbox.
posted by vacapinta at 2:50 PM on May 15, 2002

"I think it's a lot like people protesting Verisign by marching in the streets, while you sit in your car on a side street and complain about them causing you to be late to work."

And this is my issue, in a very succinct sentence. Why is your street march more important than my commute? Why are your truths more important than mine? Why are your urgencies more urgent than mine? Where is your ethical justification for this attitude?

Another analogy might be this - it's more like all the Nielson families in America getting together and deciding they all want to watch Iron Chef 10 nights in a row, in order to make some political point. Would that be ethical?

Rebeccablood - can you not see that the very next step in this evolution is people who want to googlebomb the first 25, then the first 250, then the first 2500 links for a particular search string? Already, in one of the earlier discussions, bunnyfire was asking how to accomplish this effect (for a single result, admittedly) for her real estate office. If I can think of this, how long before a marketing drone comes up with it?
posted by Irontom at 3:17 PM on May 15, 2002

When and if .... verisign reforms its practices, will you then take responsibility for the removal of the old anti-verisign links from each weblog?

I think that's part of the joy in Googlebombing something that has timely relevance. Once the link cycles off the main page of your blog, it's in the [much less linked to] archives and then much less of a googlethreat than when it was on page one of [insert high-traffic weblog here].

I've been using Google a whole lot these past few weeks and I've found that while it is a valuable resource, it's being destroyed far faster by marketers trying to increase page ranking by registering 50 soundalike domains and a jillion subdomains than by a temporary googlebomb. I mean sheesh, look at results for searching for Verisign. I see textism number 28 and a whole lot of Verisgn gluck above it. Which bothers you more?
posted by jessamyn at 3:21 PM on May 15, 2002

Civil disobedience is healthy.
posted by raaka at 3:26 PM on May 15, 2002

Or, as William Gibson would say, the street finds its own use for things.
posted by raaka at 3:27 PM on May 15, 2002

You are making needless assumptions about why people use search engines. In most case, someone Googling for 'verisign' is simply trying to find the verisign website - perhaps to update their domain, do a whois, or whatever. They are not looking for opinions on verisign.

Why is a story of a customer's actual experience with Verisign not relevant to a search for "verisign"? It says something when public opinion (which is what weblogs represent) is so strong against a company (or group, ie Scientology) that a search brings up results that the company wouldn't want you to see. The Verisign google bomb shows that as of May 2002, weblogs don't have the awesome power that earlier google bombings had. Why? well, there are many more links titled "Verisign" than there are to "Critical IP", for example.

This is not graffiti or an excercise in dadaism, but a demonstration of actual consumer feelings towards a company, which are just as valid as a company's official 'spin.' If you treat your customers well, you'll get good press on the web. If you don't, it's at your own peril.
posted by andrewraff at 3:39 PM on May 15, 2002

And this is my issue, in a very succinct sentence. Why is your street march more important than my commute? Why are your truths more important than mine? Why are your urgencies more urgent than mine? Where is your ethical justification for this attitude?

what makes your commute more important than the street march of another?

these questions all seem so pointless to me. they presuppose an ethical priority that hasn't been demonstrated. does textism number 28 deserve to be mentioned near the top of the searches for verisign? does, likewise, verisign deserve to be alone on a webpage for a search consisting only of the word "verisign"? no and no, i think.

i believe that ethics have always been relative to an individual, and by extension, to a group. i'm sure verisign would rather textism not be on that top 20 page, but clearly dean allen wants to be there. who gets to be right? i feel like we'll drift into utilitarian philosophy in a moment. even then, i think ethics would still be viewed through the film of relativism: the activist whose belief it is that certain information about verisign be relayed on google, versus verisign itself who would rather not see it on the website, and both who believe that their preferences are for the good of the many.
posted by moz at 3:45 PM on May 15, 2002

(one example of utilitarian philosophy in practice would be UNOS -- the United Network for Organ Sharing. it dictates who should and should not get organs for transplant based on a variety of factors, including medical history, familial responsibilites, age, gender, and the like. yet given a choice between two very roughly equal people, according to said characteristics, you still end up with a situation where you've two ways to choose on a razor's edge. i don't mean to directly compare UNOS with google here, because that wouldn't work at all. but situations where the choice, based on "ethics," is not clear are bound to happen. i feel that's the case with isolated google bombing.)
posted by moz at 3:52 PM on May 15, 2002

Forgive me for using 'knee-jerk' (this means you, EeksyPeeksy), but that seems to be the general reaction here. A concerted effort like this MUST be wrong, seems to be the general consensus.

rcb called it correctly, and let's not think that we know what a person is looking for when they type something into a search field. Whether they are looking for the specific web-site (such as Verisign) or for information about or by people who've had experiences with Verisign is something we can't even pretend to know.

We do know that all a search engine is obligated to do is provide a user with web-sites that are relevant to whatever it is that they did a search for.

So tell me how a google bomb like the one done on Verisign isn't relevant? To say that "most people doing a search for Verisign are looking for the company" is making a completely uneducated statement, it is in fact easier (and infinitely more factual) to say that most people doing a search for anything are looking for sites about that given subject.

The Textism article was highly relevant (as it is indeed about Verisign), and continues to be. Anyone doing a search has a right to see a full range of sites of anything pertinent to the subject they are looking for, given to them in order of relevance and hey-- if hundreds of sites finding a subject important enough to address isn't relevant, I don't know what is.

Now, were this some malicious effort to make an innocent company look like criminals, I'd understand the general fuss being raised. Googlebombing has great potential to be used for ill. Inversely, it is (or was, at least) probably the only way for the "little guys" to get very valid public opinion out about a company whose propaganda would dominate the front page of a search.
posted by precocious at 4:27 PM on May 15, 2002

This is not graffiti or an excercise in dadaism, but a demonstration of actual consumer feelings towards a company

I would agree with you if this had all occured spontaneously - if thousands of customers, shafted by verisign, each started posting their own personal bad experiences with verisign. But, we're talking about google-bombing which to me is the online equivalent of rabble-rousing and rumor-mongering.

I have seen no evidence that Verisign has done anything bad. Yes, I know, that Leslie Harpold and a few others were treated badly but, seriously, how many domain names does verisign manage? Is this statistically significant? Without well-documented proof of verisign's misbehaviour on a wide scale, this whole series of incidents seems to me the irresponsible generation of hysteria. I want to know more before burning verisign at the stake. For dean allen, using his influence, to cry "burn verisign" is what I think is unethical and irresponsible.

Oh and I forgot Critical IP sucks because they woke up Matt Haughey.

(*I* have no problem with activism and I do not mind having my silly commute disrupted if it is for an important cause. But, *domain hijacking*? This brings to light how insular the blogging community is. What happened to political and human rights issues? Is this really how, as crunchland pointed out, the community wants to spend its tokens?)
posted by vacapinta at 4:33 PM on May 15, 2002

it is in fact easier (and infinitely more factual)

I was talking about Verisign, not "anything".

let's not think that we know what a person is looking for when they type something into a search field

Thats the whole point! Google does pretend to know - thats why they return you an ordered set of links instead of just random ones.

This may be a philosophical issue, per moz, but I believe that if you can get only ONE link back from typing verisign that link should the the corporate webpage. Just as I believe that when you type stanford you should get back the stanford university webpage. That latter example, by the way, is given by Google as an ideal use of their "I'm feeling lucky" button.

In any case, I base my opinion on a utilitarian view of search engines and what function keyword-based information retrieval systems should perform. Most people looking up 'Moby Dick' in a card catalogue are looking for that book and, secondarily, critical reviews. Your opinion may differ but please dont refer to mine as 'uneducated.'
posted by vacapinta at 4:59 PM on May 15, 2002

You are making needless assumptions about why people use search engines. In most case, someone Googling for 'verisign' is simply trying to find the verisign website - perhaps to update their domain, do a whois, or whatever. They are not looking for opinions on Verisign.

Forgive me if the above is an actual educated statement of opinion as fact.

Thats the whole point! Google does pretend to know - thats why they return you an ordered set of links instead of just random ones.

Google makes no promises that they are delivering facts, they offer links in order of relevance, about the subject of the search. In a case like Verisign, the most relevant link is the link to the actual company. The "I'm Feeling Lucky" option directs one to the most relevant, assuming that is what they want. Hence, "I'm Feeling Lucky" as opposed to "Click Here To Find Exactly What You're Looking For."

The issue here is-- is an article linked by hundreds of sites relevant enough to be included in a list of "relevant" links? I personally think so, but apparently there are plenty others who don't.
posted by precocious at 5:18 PM on May 15, 2002

precocious - doesn't that kind of depend on the reasoning behind the link? If you are trying to determine "relevance", you want to give more consideration to someone who linked to the site because they decided it was relevant in their normal course of affairs than you do to someone who linked with the express purpose of raising the target's Google ranking.

I'd hate for Google to turn into all those online polls that get linked to on Slashdot with a "Go vote for Linux here now!" comment. Or into your typical American Board of Education, which is packed with religious fundamentalists because they're the only ones who care enough to vote.
posted by jaek at 5:30 PM on May 15, 2002

how to accomplish this effect (for a single result, admittedly) for her real estate office. If I can think of this, how long before a marketing drone comes up with it?

Make no mistake. They already have. What they lack is the support of the heavyweight bloggers. However, now that there are front page posts about new coca-cola products, or new pepsi products, the market weasels are already making in-roads. If you're Tivo, for example, you make sure that Jason Kottke gets one. He's already a shill for Amazon.com.

Hell, the people who make the Pencam sent me a freebie when my old camera broke, and I sort of said what a piece of junk the thing was on my site (which ranks higher on google searches for "pencam" than their own). My hands are dirty, too.

I've been noticing that AOL advertisements as well as other less memorable ones have been appearing in the blogdex lately. Now that TIME magazine has noticed weblogs, so has every marketing department in the world.
posted by crunchland at 6:26 PM on May 15, 2002

It would be like having an ATM on your street corner, automatically spitting out a couple of 20s every time you walked by. Sure, it's a malfunction, but why tell the bank their machine is broken?

Well, because...um...oh, nevermind.

Can I vote for 2207 now as one of my favorite recent threads? The arguments on both (all?) sides have been fascinating, educational, persuasive, and (mostly) well-reasoned and free of personal attacks. And I'm STILL not sure where I fall on the issue.
posted by rushmc at 7:27 PM on May 15, 2002

Why is your opinion about something so important as to justify monkeywrenching the best search engine (if not the best thing) on the net? Why is your self-righteous indignation more important that leaving well enough alone?

If Google is so great, why are we treating it like something that can be damaged by a small coordinated link campaign?

Search engine manipulation attempts are as old as search engines. The loosely organized googlebombs set off by Matt and others are small time compared to the ones being attempted by the Church of Scientology and many others with a commercial interest in manipulating the rankings.

The google algorithms do (apparently) rely on link popularity, but they were (apparently) not designed with coordinated campaigns in mind.

Then Google should redesign them. The idea that we should all be careful about how we link to things, lest we damage the performance of a private company's closed-source page ranking algorithm, is ludicrous.

Google is built on the backs of thousands of people making good links and describing them well. Webloggers are like its worker bees, producing more descriptive links to new content than any other part of the Web. The occasional weblogger googlebomb, which the company already seems to have minimized in its algorithm, seems to be a small price to pay for the benefit Google derives from us.
posted by rcade at 8:19 PM on May 15, 2002

Vacapinta: "This may be a philosophical issue, per moz, but I believe that if you can get only ONE link back from typing verisign that link should the the corporate webpage."
"In any case, I base my opinion on a utilitarian view of search engines and what function keyword-based information retrieval systems should perform. Most people looking up 'Moby Dick' in a card catalogue are looking for that book and, secondarily, critical reviews."

You're imposing your own requirements for utility here. You have to understand that search engines look for text strings, not concepts. "Verisign" doesn't mean "the company Verisign" to the Google algorythm. It's just a block of text.

Let's review a lesson in basic search engine usage:
If someone wants specifically to find the Verisign homepage, then they should search for "Verisign homepage" or something to that effect. This narrows their search to what they are looking for. It's Verisign's responsibility to indicate their homepage is their homepage.
If the user just feeds "Verisign" to a search engine, they are implicitly accepting anything that gets thrown at them.

Let's be honest here: Just about every bomb I've seen so far reles on lazy search engine users who won't put in the effort to filter these things out. Google searches are not the same thing as AOL Keywords.

posted by Su at 8:55 PM on May 15, 2002

doesn't that kind of depend on the reasoning behind the link? If you are trying to determine "relevance", you want to give more consideration to someone who linked to the site because they decided it was relevant in their normal course of affairs than you do to someone who linked with the express purpose of raising the target's Google ranking.

I do, do I?

In all seriousness, though, there seem to be some unamusing assumptions being made, perhaps not here specifically, but at several points in this thread.

One, that I (and other webloggers) are easily led sheep who mindlessly follow the whims and causes of "A-listers", without taking the time to consider if it is a worthy cause that we wish to participate in.

Two, that anyone doing a search for anything (Verisign, in this case) are going to believe everything they read, and thus, need to be protected from the evil machinations of Google bombers.

Without arrogantly believing that we know what a search engine user specifically wants when they use it, there are some definites at work here:

1 - the search engine user is looking for information about whatever it is they're searching for (duh), be it from the company itself, or outside sources;

2 - Google delivers that information to them, in order of relevance, based on an algorhythm I won't even begin to attempt to discern;

3 - because of a quirk of said algorhythm, many webloggers were able to increase the rating (for a brief time) of an article which is undeniably relevant to the query which brings it up.

I know it's simply stated, but in this case, I think simplicity is best. There's nothing deceptive going on here. A gaggle of MeFites and 'bloggers didn't all get together to make certain that anyone looking for information about Verisign were sent to a site for gay porn or Plushie fetishists.

What... was the problem here again?
posted by precocious at 9:26 PM on May 15, 2002

A gaggle of MeFites and 'bloggers didn't all get together to make certain that anyone looking for information about Verisign were sent to a site for gay porn or Plushie fetishists.

But they could have. Therein lies the problem. Google will adjust, and the Linkstone, long the source of Blogutopia's power, will tarnish and fade. With great power comes great responsibility.
posted by Opus Dark at 9:43 PM on May 15, 2002

Geez, this sounds like a graffit artists convention.

Just because I spray shit on a subway car does not mean it is vandalism. Helll it's ART.

Googlebombing is no different than IP vandalism. It is a concerted effort by like minded people to exploit a weakness in a system for their own goals. To the bombers, it is illustrious. To the victims (no matter how big and bad the evil empire is), it simply weakens their sympathy towards the protester.

The first time the target(s) may have said: Whoa
The second time the target(s) probably said: Damn!
The third time the targe(s) are saying: No Worries. We cut them off at the pass.

This thread is similar to when the F-18s flew over Manhattan after 9/11. One would hear the noise and never see the plane, because it passed by earlier. The sound, like this thread, were memories of an even that took place before we noticed.

Folks, it is over. There is no Kaycee-esque mystery to be solved here. The initial Verisign (or CriticalIP) attack, (or whatever site it was) clearly pointed up the weakness. It has been fixed by now.

And in the future, to all of you who took part in these little GB experiments, do not bitch about the hAx0rs in the world, becuase you are indeed one of them.
posted by lampshade at 10:49 PM on May 15, 2002

It is a concerted effort by like minded people to exploit a weakness in a system for their own goals.

just curious, has there actually been any commentary from google, official press release type thing re: google bombing?

how do we know it's an exploit of a weakness?
in the absence (afaik) of official commentary from google, it's entirely possible that the algorithm functioned the way it was supposed to function and when some companies complained, google then decided that they no longer wanted it to keep working that way.
posted by juv3nal at 11:44 PM on May 15, 2002

lampshade:

Googlebombing is no different than IP vandalism. It is a concerted effort by like minded people to exploit a weakness in a system for their own goals.

with vastly different consequences. i don't think that, because two things share a commonality, they are equivalent. that doesn't make any sense to me.

juv:

in the absence (afaik) of official commentary from google, it's entirely possible that the algorithm functioned the way it was supposed to function

the algorithm did function as it was supposed to. the flaw, if you can call it that, is in the algorithm's design. (which is, more links = more relevance.)
posted by moz at 11:48 PM on May 15, 2002

Juv3nal: I don't have the link handy, but it was posted in one of the recent threads regarding bombs. Someone from Google pretty much said, "Eh. We'll be watching, just in case it becomes a problem, but it's not likely."
posted by Su at 12:30 AM on May 16, 2002

Google's PageRank™ isn't a weakness or a flaw in Google's system; it's their biggest feature.

Dean Allen writes a webpage about Verisign. Other people think his information is worth linking to. The page shows up in a search for "Verisign". That's the system working as designed.

Nothing has been vandalized. No one has been hacked. More information has been added to the Web and Google is helping you find it. That's what Google is for.
posted by timeistight at 1:05 AM on May 16, 2002

...VeriSign, X10 and a zillion other spammers and spam-like entities would use Googlebombing as a tool to grab eyes -- call it GoogleAdBombing...

...However, now that there are front page posts about new coca-cola products, or new pepsi products, the market weasels are already making in-roads. If you're Tivo, for example, you make sure that Jason Kottke gets one...

Not to be a total wanktard, but I said almost precisely the same thing two months ago. Neener neener neener!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:15 AM on May 16, 2002

I think that lampshade hit it right on the head. But I have had a flash of insight - I now know why this bugs me so much.

It's the equivalent of SPAM. And (this is what really bothers me) it's spam by people who hate spam. People who, now their genie is out of the bottle, will bitch and moan and write lots of posts and call for crusades to stop this evil from "ruining the web".

But, only when it's launched by those with commercial interests in mind (thanks for the post stavros). They will still reserve the right to conduct the same kinds of tactics whenever they feel there is some pressing moral need for the "little guy" to "get the word out". And they will do this with absolutely no sense of irony, responsibility or even comprehension that they themselves have spawned this phenomena.

It's spam because it is an unwanted, unasked for intrusion into a useful tool. Just like all those penis enlargement ads we hear so much about. And, the end result, even moreso than my inbox, will be a very difficult time discerning the wheat from the chaff of all the crap that shows up when I do a Google search 2 years from now. So, I can and do decry the practice outright, in its entirety.
posted by Irontom at 5:15 AM on May 16, 2002

The only abusive GoogleBombing is that done by a single entity masquerading as dozens or hundreds through multiple domains.

Dozens or hundreds of people expressing their opinion in a coordinated manner is hundreds of people in agreement and it's right for Google to reflect their judgement.
posted by NortonDC at 5:25 AM on May 16, 2002

People seem to keep missing rcb's point, which I think is the key one - bombing only works if you happen to have the respect of a large community of people. If Matt (or anyone else) posted a 'Hey, googlebomb this fridge company, I just stubbed my toe on it' every day, people would stop listening and the effect would go away.

Now, someone said above that companies can buy tons of domains to increase their ranking... if that's true it's a bigger problem, and they should be working on a way to filter those out.
posted by zzero at 5:34 AM on May 16, 2002

It's spam because it is an unwanted, unasked for intrusion into a useful tool. Just like all those penis enlargement ads we hear so much about.

But with the case of Verisign, Critical IP and David Gallagher, this is not unrelated intrusion. These are relevant search results. If Matt tried to convince everyone to googlebomb a search for "rollerblade" to point to a page about penis enlargement, then it would be an unwanted, unasked for intrusion. BUT, he wouldn't get enough people to support that endavour. As zzero & rcb point out above"bombing only works if you happen to have the respect of a large community of people"

Also, the failure of Textism's page to rise higher on Google is not a result of Google changing the way pages are ranked, it's simply the fact that Verisign is mentioned and linked to in many more places on the web (and from very influential web pages) than other Google bomb targets, demonstrating that the power of weblogs is not quite as great as some might hope or fear.
posted by andrewraff at 7:01 AM on May 16, 2002

If Matt (or anyone else) posted a 'Hey, googlebomb this fridge company, I just stubbed my toe on it' every day, people would stop listening and the effect would go away.

I am not completely convinced that there wouldn't be dozens of "me, too" bloggers who would jump aboard any googlebombing campaign if certain key individuals started them.
posted by crunchland at 8:38 AM on May 16, 2002

It's the equivalent of SPAM. And (this is what really bothers me) it's spam by people who hate spam. People who, now their genie is out of the bottle, will bitch and moan and write lots of posts and call for crusades to stop this evil from "ruining the web".

no, google bombing is not necessarily spam, irontom. it certainly could be. clearly, dean allen's article on verisign was related to verisign; its placement on a top search page is out of the ordinary, but otherwise acceptable due to its relevance. for google bombing to be spam, one would have to include links of complete irrelevance to verisign.

there will be no crusades to stop "this evil" because none are needed. spam, as email, is sent through a distributed network of mail hosts that is not administrated by any single entity. one person could decide not to allow their mail host to be used as a relay for spammers on the internet, but another could decide to. google, on the other hand, is a single entity with administrative charge of their search engine. they most certainly can fix this problem, if they have not already; there is no need to rally support and promote education on the proper way to configure mail relays or anything similar.

It's spam because it is an unwanted, unasked for intrusion into a useful tool.

should we fight to stop webmasters from allowing google to index blathering message boards, community sites and weblogs? they pollute the results of my otherwise simple request with passing mentions and content which no longer exists. do i have a right to scold these irresponsible webmasters?
posted by moz at 8:41 AM on May 16, 2002

(well, i suppose you could rally people together to bug google about making changes.)
posted by moz at 8:42 AM on May 16, 2002

My point is not that we shouldn't do what we do (blogging and so on). My point is that by deliberately monkewrenching the system, we open pandora's lovely little box. And, that I can see no ethical distinction between doing so for a good cause (Verisign sucks or whatever) and a bad (or indiferent) cause (Santa Cruz real estate rankings). And if I can't see a distinction, I am sure that many other people who are much less scrupulous than Matt can't see it either.
posted by Irontom at 9:02 AM on May 16, 2002

Googlebombing is no different than IP vandalism. It is a concerted effort by like minded people to exploit a weakness in a system for their own goals.

It's spam because it is an unwanted, unasked for intrusion

I suppose that makes Amnesty International's letter writing campaigns a form of vandalism or spam. The dictators and human rights offenders they send letters to certainly view them as such, but that doesn't make their goal any less valid. Again, we're talking about a coordinated effort to get *relative information* higher in search results, to draw public attention to an issue in one of the few ways possible on the Internet that doesn't involve lots and lots of money.

The same results could be and are achieved by a whole lot of people including a link to some topic -- say, pancakes and bunny rabbits -- all using different phrasing but including the key words, the effect would be the same, only slower. A Googlebomb just gets the job faster through efficiency.

On further reflection, I have little fear that a Googlebomb created by spammers would have little effect on Google in the long run. For one thing, Google takes into account the content of the linked page, not just the phrase containing the link, so a "pancakes and bunny rabbits" link that aims at a porn site that contains no references to bunny rabbits or pancakes would receive a very low PageRank score. (Well, I guess a "Breakfast at the Playboy Mansion" page might work...) Spammers would have a difficult time raising their sites on searches for topics unrelated to their products -- that coupled with Google's apparent new algorithmic flack jacket should protect us pretty well.
posted by me3dia at 9:09 AM on May 16, 2002

"Again, we're talking about a coordinated effort to get *relative information* higher in search results, to draw public attention to an issue in one of the few ways possible on the Internet that doesn't involve lots and lots of money."

And, you are doing it with a useful service that I would miss if it died or went pay-per-view. That nobody asked you to monkey with, because you think it is important. A more useful analogy might be if Amnesty International managed to subvert Dateline somehow, even if it were only for one night.
posted by Irontom at 9:22 AM on May 16, 2002

And, you are doing it with a useful service that I would miss if it died or went pay-per-view. That nobody asked you to monkey with, because you think it is important.

when and where has it been suggested, by google or by anyone, that google would die or go "pay per view" because of google bombing?

i mean no offense, irontom. i think you should relax and spend some time away from this thread. the tone of the posts i've read from you here has been one of extreme agitation, and i don't think that's really helping you (or anyone).
posted by moz at 9:40 AM on May 16, 2002

I am not completely convinced that there wouldn't be dozens of "me, too" bloggers who would jump aboard any googlebombing campaign if certain key individuals started them.

True, but the more it happens, the fewer those people would be, and they would also be less likely to have people linking to them and thus be less effective (I would think, anyway).
posted by zzero at 10:06 AM on May 16, 2002

Last post, then (for me).

Yes I am agitated, and yes I worry. I am worried about the possible long-term, unintended consequences of Googlebombing. Google is the best thing on the web, and I worry about people permanently damaging it (rendering it less useful) with short-term activities.

The two examples I gave were the best I could conjure up.


posted by Irontom at 10:10 AM on May 16, 2002

People seem to keep missing rcb's point, which I think is the key one - bombing only works if you happen to have the respect of a large community of people. If Matt (or anyone else) posted a 'Hey, googlebomb this fridge company, I just stubbed my toe on it' every day, people would stop listening and the effect would go away.

No kidding. That's why all these claims of net abuse (and hacking!) are so laughable. If googlebombs depend on people who have the respect of others to propigate, and they do, this alleged "problem" comes with its own built-in solution. No one's going to respect people who start these campaigns to mislead or to spam.

And in the future, to all of you who took part in these little GB experiments, do not bitch about the hAx0rs in the world, becuase you are indeed one of them.

Give me a break. How am I "hAxoring" Google by posting a link on my web site to a site of my choosing with a description of my choosing?
posted by rcade at 10:13 AM on May 16, 2002

I nominate we googlebomb this thread for pointless whining. That's pointless whining. Thank you.

posted by precocious at 10:29 AM on May 16, 2002

I'll pass on the "pointless whining" Google bomb. Not That There's Anything Wrong with It.
posted by timeistight at 10:54 AM on May 16, 2002

I fear that this argument has reached what I call the Smullyan point.
posted by vacapinta at 11:29 AM on May 16, 2002

Clarification: I didn't mean I'd pass it on; I meant I'd pass on it.
posted by timeistight at 11:41 AM on May 16, 2002

Stavros - wanktard ! Thanks, that made my day!
posted by Lynsey at 11:42 AM on May 16, 2002