| The Behrend Beacon
Ask ASCII: What is
a ‘Google Bomb?’
By Logan Stack
staff writer
Pear AM II
Win is it that when I type “miserable failure''
mto the Google box and then hit "I'm Feeling
I uck\ that I get the White House site and a biog
i.ipln of George W. Bush?
M\ stdied
I tear \l\ stilled
I his is what's ealled a “Google Bomb.” And for
people w ho be!ie\e George W. Bush is a warmon
ger. this name happens to be oddly appropriate. You
get W's biography beeause of the way Google keeps
uaek of w hat w eb pages are related to what search
lernis. Beeause so many web pages lie about their
content to get more hits from search engines.
(ioogle ignores what a web page claims to be about
and uses a different method for finding out what
the site is actually about. And Google’s way has
little to do with what's actually on the site.
(ioogle works like this: It goes around the w'eb,
iollow mg links and looking at who linked to a site
and what they said about it. A given site is ranked
in the Google search engine based on w'ho linked
to it and how many people linked to it. So ifyou’re
searching for "Penn State.” most links that say
"Penn State” link to “http://www.psu.edu/
"w ww psu.edu. so that's w hat (ioogle returns as its
first result (which you get w'hen you click “I’m
leulmg lucks.") This has some unforeseen side ef-
At some point, someone realized that if he
searches for "more evil than Satan himself,” Google
w ould list mierosoft.com as the first hit. As it turned
out. a lot of people had made links to Microsoft
using keywords like "evil" and "Satan,” and that
led to Microsoft being the #1 hit for "more evil than
Satan himself." Hventually though, news articles
pointing this fact out got linked to more frequently,
m the search no longer works using evil and Satan,
instead "I'm Feeling Lucky” returns the news sto
nes reporting on that fact.
flic first time someone tried to intentionally
change (ioogle's ranking of a page was done as a
|okv. Adam Mathes got a bunch of people to link to
his friend’s site using the words “Talentless Hack.”
and it worked. Unfortunately for Mathes. so many
people linked to his web page with the story ex
plaining how' it was done that now his site is the it I
return on (ioogle for “Talentless Hack.” (now
THAT, Alanis Morissette, is ironic.)
So it so many people think Bush is a “miserable
failure,” how did he get re-elected? Well, if you
search tor “great president," you get the same bi
ography, so obviously lots of people like him too.
There are plenty of interesting Google bombs that
still work. “Unelectable" returns the same Bush bi
ography. "Weapons of mass destruction" returns a
take “cannot be found” error with a bunch of jokes
about being unable to find the WMD’s and urging
the reader to change their “UN Inspector settings.”
“French military victories” returns a page designed
to look like Google's “returned no results” page,
and suggesting that you search for “French mili
tary defeats.” There are also quite a few in other
languages. “Weird Haircut” in Dutch will return the
biography of the Netherlands’s Prime Minister.
Google bombs have a tendency to deactivate
themselves. Often, stories talking about the bomb
supplant the bomb in Google’s rankings. And fre
quently bloggers put the link in their on line jour
nals, and when that entry in the Blog gets pushed
oft the main page by newer entries, Google doesn't
count the link for as much. A link on the main page
is worth far more than a link on a page buried deep
in a web site, so as time passes the bomb becomes
weaker until it basically fizzles no longer arriv
ing as the first search result.
So, what does it take to make a (ioogle bomb? A
bunch of friends with web sites. If enough people
make links on their sites to the target site using the
same terms, it will change the target sites’s Google
ranking. The more obscure the words, the fewer
the links needed, as they’ve got less competition
from web sites which are actually using those
w'ords. Have fun bombing. Better on line that in
Iraq.
Do von have a computer question? Ask ASCII!
Send an e-mail to “mailto: lwsl 18(a.;psu.edu”
IwsllS(apsu.edu with "Ask ASCII: " in the subject
line to gel your question answered.
Test your knowledge
Trivia for avid 'South Park'fans
DallasNews.com/(KRT)
1. Kenny famously dies in almost every epi
sode of "South Park." What officially killed
Kenny in 2001 (before his resurrection in the
show's eighth season)?
A. Stan, Kyle and Cartman set Kenny on fire
B. Terminal illness
C. Heart failure
D. Electrocution
2. How many swear words are spoken in
"South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut"?
A. 146
B. 221
C. 1,230
D. 399
3. "South Park" creators Trey Parker and Matt
Stone based which two South Park characters
on themselves?
A. Kenny and Cartman
B. Stan and Kyle
C. Stan and Cartman
D. Kenny and Kyle
Friday, November 5, 2004
4. According to Comedy Central's "South
Park" Web site, what cataclysmic feud
launched the "South Park" craze?
A. Jesus vs. Frosty the Snowman
B. Good vs. Evil
C. The Arquette acting family vs. the
Baldwins brothers.
D. Satan vs. Saddam Hussein.
5. True or False: South Park is an actual town
in Colorado.
A. True
B. False
CORRECT ANSWERS:
1. B. Terminal illness
2. D. 399. As of 2002, the film held the
Guinness world record for most profanity in
an animated feature film.
3. B. Stan and Kyle
4. A. Jesus vs. Frosty the Snowman. Jesus
and Frosty battled it out in a short cartoon that
started the series.
5. B. False. South Park is a region in Den
ver. Fairplay, the town the show is based on,
is located in the South Park region.
COMEDY CENTRAL