[nfbwatlk] googling the word failure

[Carl Jarvis]

Here's a follow up for those of you who googled the word Failure.  
Carl

While I like Carl's explanation of the Google anomaly much better
than the prosaic explanation, I did find this text at http://
googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/googlebombing-failure.html to be both
amusing and enlightening.

Googlebombing 'failure'
9/16/2005 12:54:00 PM

Posted by Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products

If you do a Google search on the word [failure] or the phrase
[miserable failure], the top result is currently the White House’s
official biographical page for President Bush. We've received some
complaints recently from users who assume that this reflects a
political bias on our part. I'd like to explain how these results
come up in order to allay these concerns.

Google's search results are generated by computer programs that rank
web pages in large part by examining the number and relative
popularity of the sites that link to them. By using a practice called
googlebombing, however, determined pranksters can occasionally
produce odd results. In this case, a number of webmasters use the
phrases [failure] and [miserable failure] to describe and link to
President Bush's website, thus pushing it to the top of searches for
those phrases. We don't condone the practice of googlebombing, or any
other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search
results, but we're also reluctant to alter our results by hand in
order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks like this may be
distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our
search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our
mission.

On Aug 25, 2006, at 11:43 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:

>
> Andy and Seville,
> This is obviously part of a terrorist attack on our president.
> Alert the National Security.
> Carl Harvis (Last name changed for security reasons)
-------------- next part --------------
Here's a follow up for those of you who googled the word Failure. 
Carl
 
While I like Carl's explanation of the Google anomaly much better
than the prosaic explanation, I did find this text at http://
googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/09/googlebombing-failure.html to be both
amusing and enlightening.
 
Googlebombing 'failure'
9/16/2005 12:54:00 PM
 
Posted by Marissa Mayer, Director of Consumer Web Products
 
If you do a Google search on the word [failure] or the phrase
[miserable failure], the top result is currently the White House’s
official biographical page for President Bush. We've received some
complaints recently from users who assume that this reflects a
political bias on our part. I'd like to explain how these results
come up in order to allay these concerns.
 
Google's search results are generated by computer programs that rank
web pages in large part by examining the number and relative
popularity of the sites that link to them. By using a practice called
googlebombing, however, determined pranksters can occasionally
produce odd results. In this case, a number of webmasters use the
phrases [failure] and [miserable failure] to describe and link to
President Bush's website, thus pushing it to the top of searches for
those phrases. We don't condone the practice of googlebombing, or any
other action that seeks to affect the integrity of our search
results, but we're also reluctant to alter our results by hand in
order to prevent such items from showing up. Pranks like this may be
distracting to some, but they don't affect the overall quality of our
search service, whose objectivity, as always, remains the core of our
mission.
 
On Aug 25, 2006, at 11:43 AM, Carl Jarvis wrote:
 
>
> Andy and Seville,
> This is obviously part of a terrorist attack on our president.
> Alert the National Security.
> Carl Harvis (Last name changed for security reasons)