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.

Related Topics: Channel: SEO | Google: SEO | Google: Web Search | Link Building: Link Bombs

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is a Founding Editor of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also serves as Chief Content Officer for Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He has a personal blog called Daggle (and keeps his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan

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