Interesting article on Google bombing for political reasons over at the New York Times (reg required, yadda yadda). It takes as its starting point the campaign of a Bellevue, WA man to make George W. Bush's official biography the first result for "miserable failure," and the counter attempts by others to link it to Michael Moore.
Google bombing for phrases like that are more sport than anything. I doubt anyone will change their opinion of a celebrity or politician based on it. In fact, I doubt anyone who isn't in on the gag searches for "miserable failure" at all.
Of much more import is a Google bomb which attempts to go the other way: point a commonly used term to a new site which redefines or stands in opposition to the usual expectations for that term. Dan Savage's as-yet-unsuccessful campaign to introduce "santorum" as a scatological noun, replacing Senator Rick Santorum from the top spot, falls in this category. Success against a term with many existing links is much more difficult than one against an uncommon phrase. An interesting follow-on article might put more emphasis on how people have approached that problem.
Posted by awm at January 22, 2004 09:38 AM