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Jan. 25, 2008 at 2:09pm Eastern by Danny Sullivan
Happy First Birthday, Google Bomb Fix!
Short but sweet -- one year ago today, a momentous event that must be recalled. Google bombing was defused. George W. Bush was no longer a miserable failure, and other mass link bombing attempts stopped working. For the most part, the Google bombing fix that Google put into place seems to have continued working. For those who don't recall the story, the links below provide background:
- Google Kills
Bush's Miserable Failure Search & Other Google Bombs (the fix goes up,
plus the Google bombing story)
- George W. Bush: A
Failure Once Again, According To Google (The White House uses the verboten
word "failure" and starts ranking again)
- Google Declares
Stephen Colbert As Greatest Living American (Despite the fix, Stephen
Colbert uses super powers to get past it)
- Google Says
Stephen Colbert Is No Longer The Greatest Living American (Google
kryptonite brings Stephen crashing to earth)
- Man Arrested For Google Bombing Polish President Into Top Spot For "Kutas" (Penis) (Since it was all reported in Polish, it was hard to tell if this was Google bombing or not. But it was certainly headline grabbing!)
How about an update? Bush still doesn't rank tops for miserable failure at Google, but he does well elsewhere:
- Ask: Bush ranks number 1 for miserable failure
- Microsoft: Bush ranks number 3 for miserable failure
- Yahoo: Bush ranks number 1 for miserable failure
Keep in mind, Bush will have an end to his mockery when he leaves office, and his successor will inherit the link bomb. Why? As my article explains, the White House tried to combat the bomb by killing off Bush's standalone biography page and redirected requests for it to the general page for US presidents (not surprisingly, they never responded to several requests I made for comment on the changes). Long after Bush leaves office, future US presidents will rank tops for miserable failure because of this, unless they give some serious thought to how redirections are currently handled.
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By Danny Sullivan
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